Last week was kinda crazy! No school last Monday, one day of teaching and then Benchmarks! Friday I had to be out unexpectedly with a sick little girl. What a crazy week! This week, though it is a full five days, we will have more benchmark tests. We have Math on Wednesday and Reading on Thursday. Students who are absent on benchmark days will need to make it up upon return.
The writing benchmarks are over now. I am just beginning to look through the narratives and expositories the students wrote. I'm not expecting perfection, of course. We have had practice writing one of each in class prior to the test. This is a chance for me to see where each student is in his or her abilitiy to read a prompt, plan for writing, write a rough draft, revise and edit, and then write a final copy. Some students are well on their way to a full understanding of the writing process. I am not able to send the benchmarks home. I am only able to show you what your child did in person. Let me know if you want to make an appointment to come see this. We will be using the examples written by all the students (names removed of course) to analyze and determine what could be done differently to improve the writing. Throughout the year we will do plenty of practice writing to a prompt. I prefer to do the majority of the work IN class, because I have to know where the students are and what needs they have without support at home. You will get a chance to see some of their work as I send graded practices home throughout the rest of the year.
This week in Language Arts we are NOT doing writing stations. We are going to make some changes to station before beginning them again after the Thanksgiving break. In the meantime, we are working on revising and editing in large and small groups. No new spelling rules will be introduced this week, but we will continue to work on suffixes and their meanings.
In Social Studies we learned about the Spanish eplorers who came through Texas. Now we are learning about a French explorer named La Salle. His ship, the La Belle, is being built at the Bob Bullock museum right now. This is an open exhibit, meaning you can watch it being assembled. I will be showing the students two short videos tomorrow about how the wreckage was discovered and how it was transported here to Austin. Pretty cool!!
Please see my Upcoming Dates for anything coming up. Have a great week!