Fresh Start

Now that we are into the second half of the year, I must say that I am very proud of how far we have come. We have grown so much as a class over the past few months and I have some high expectations for the remainder of the year. Even though we had a great first half of the year, now that we are back from break and back in the swing of things, it is time for a fresh start. We got a lot accomplished in the first half, so let’s do the same as we close out the year and prepare for the next level.

Speaking of the next level, we spent two weeks on one story in the Harcourt Series, and now we get to move on. We spent the last two weeks focusing on William Shakespeare and the Globe, but now we are going onto The World of William Joyce Scrapbook. For this story we are going to continue practicing extended responses. Now that we have really hit them hard for the last few weeks, I am confident the students have a good grasp on what needs to be included in them. As a matter of fact, I had the students revise one of the responses they wrote earlier in the year, and they were shocked as to how far they have come in developing their writing. This is a good sign! Now instead of giving the students so much time to rework their responses, they will start being timed. This will help them get used to the pressure situation created when ISAT’s role around.

While extended response took up the greater portion of our writing time, now that we have gotten through the meat of the lessons, we can move on in writing. A few weeks ago we started the ABC’s & D of On-demand/Prompt Writing. We got through the A, B, and C, but now we need to actually practice writing our responses and completing the D portion of the process. We will spend the later part of next week going through exactly what needs to be included in these responses, writing a response as a whole class, and preparing the students to write one of their own. By the time this unit is done, hopefully the students will be as good at prompt writing as they are with the extended responses.

Social Studies has been awesome this week! We have gotten through a lot of the presentations and they were great! We had some skits, PowerPoint presentations, and some students even used the Elmo! It is obvious that the students learned a lot about the causes of the American Revolution. I even learned a few things. The next step is to talk about the Declaration of Independence, other events leading to the war, and the battles themselves. This is a very interesting part of American history, and my hope is that the students will feel the same way when this unit is all done. By the way, be ready for a test on Monday or Tuesday on the causes of the American Revolution. YIKES!!!!

Even though we have had two short weeks in a row, we have gotten a lot accomplished, and I have similar expectations for the upcoming weeks. We have a lot going on right now, but I am confident, that we can get through it. It has been a very productive first half of the year, and now it’s time for a fresh start. With as far as we have come since the beginning of the year, the sky is the limit for the second half!