This week in LA, we are continuing our focus on drama. Students have become very aware of stage directions written into scripts and are mastering the art of following what they say as they read their lines. We've done many practices in a variety of ways with The Tale of the Too Talkative Turtle and Ranita, the Frog Princess. This week the students will be reading 2 more plays. I've invited them to look for short 2-3 people plays they want to work on in their free time if they'd like. I will let them perform them (readers' theater style-no props or costumes) on Fridays if they let me know ahead of time.
In addition to reading, we are working on our first expository writing. The prompt is "What animal do you think would make the best pet? Explain why you think that animal would be a good choice for a pet." We are working on this prompt in small chunks. Today we did a quick list to brainstorm for ideas. In addition we made an observations and beliefs chart, as we learned about last week. This sets each student up for paragraphing, which we will work on tomorrow. Our mini lessons this week in writing include revisiting capitalization, correlative conjunctions (either/or, neither/nor), quotation marks, and irregular plurals. Look for a short homework practice on MONDAY and again on WEDNESDAY to practice those skills.
In social studies we are doing a wrap up of the first 8 weeks (regions and Native Americans.) Students finished up their Native American infographics. This week, if time allows, they will add a menu to it. We will present them in a "gallery walk" on Friday.