Riley's Farm Adventure

On October 16th, 2015, we boarded the Yellow School Bus Time machine. 

When we got off, we entered into the township of Concord in the 1700's where a sweet lass named Ava W. was named the Flag Bearer for the day. 

The ladies and gentlemen of the colonies greeted us and gave us directions for our journey ahead. 

As we sat inside of the small kitchen of the past, we found ourselves being very thankful that we live in 2015 :) 

We learned that the women had to grind the wheat over and over again until it became a fine powder.

After milking the goat or cow out in the field, the butter had to be churned for a long time. 

The biscuits were very fun to roll by hand!

After that, we learned how to make apple cider.

Watch out for your finger!

We even got to make our own candles by dipping into hot wax first, then into the cold water. 

Everyone had a blast playing with old fashioned wooden toys.

See how much fun they are having WITHOUT hand-held devices??

It was wonderful to see everyone in action, fully engaged in all of the toys and games. 

We were able to take a few group photos along the way. Look at those faces!! 

Here are some pictures of the kids learning to weave using wool from sheep. I'm so glad I can just run to Target when I need a new blanket.

Another group shot over the bridge. 

The final station was all about etiquette. Our lads learned how to greet the ladies properly.

The lasses were not allowed to greet the lads until the boys initiated. 

Their curtsies were just too adorable. 

And yes, I did get my apple pie. Boy, was it delicious, especially after a long day of traveling back in time. 

Writers' Workshop

Teaching the writing process takes much time and patience. However, the students persevered and did an excellent job!

First of all, take a look at our awesome Award-Winning Writers' Notebooks that we will get to keep adding on to throughout the year. 

There is a method to my madness here. We are learning to write an EXCELLENT paragraph using our Green, Yellow, Red, and Green. Please look carefully at each color's explanation below.

 

We will always use an outline that looks like this:

This is an INFORMATIONAL essay, so our green Topic Sentence gives a big idea or a big fact about our topic (no opinions, and no details should be in the Topic Sentence). 

The yellow Star Ideas give FACTS about our topic. The yellow Star Ideas always begin with TRANSITION words. 

We LOVE our "cheat sheets" that are included in our Writers' Notebook. This is a list of our time-order words/temporal words that we can use as our transitions. 

Next, we give 2-3 Red Examples about each of our yellow Star Ideas. 

Then, we move on to our rough draft paper that looks like this. This is when we use our outline and make everything into COMPLETE SENTENCES:

We do self-editing as well as peer-editing, and go crazy with our red pens:) 

We even have a cheat sheet for our green conclusion sentences. This is green because we go back to our green Topic Sentence, and restate the topic sentence in different words. 

Finally, we carefully use all of the corrections from our editing process, and we write our FINAL COPY. They must indent, skip lines, and only use the front of the loose leaf paper. 

The final copy will be graded using the following rubric (or something similar):

Informational Text Rubric (Step Up to Writing)

Name___________________Date___________Score___________

______(3/3) I wrote my name, number, and date.

­­­­­­­______(3/3) I remembered to indent the paragraph.

______(5/5) I skipped lines.

______(10/10) My topic sentence gives a big, overall idea of the topic. It does not give

                         away the details of the topic.

______(6/6) I have 3 Star Ideas.

______(6/6) The Star Ideas begin with transition words.

______(6/6) The Star Ideas give facts about the topic sentence.

______(6/6) I have 2-3 Red Examples for each Star Idea.

______(5/5) My Red Examples give specific examples for each Star Idea.

______(5/5) My conclusion begins with “Conclusion Sentence Words.”

______(5/5) My conclusion restates the topic sentence in other words.

______(10/10) I used my editing marks to write the final draft correctly.

______(10/10) I used punctuation marks correctly.

______(10/10) I spelled 3^rd grade words correctly, or copied the provided spelling

                          of words.

______(10/10) I used correct grammar.

Robots vs. Superheroes!

Today (10/1/2015) was the first Spirit Rally, and our theme was "Robots vs. Superheroes". We had the best looking heroes and robots on campus!! 

We did not win the Eagle for the month of September...we were quite sad about it. For those of you who are new, the office counts up all of the tardies and absences for the entire month, and whoever has the least amount gets to adopt our furry little Eagle friend for that particular month. 

Let's work on having NO TARDIES for the entire month of October, everyone! We can do it!!

Our Very First Book Report Project

Our students did a SUPER job on their Book in a Box Project!! I was so very proud of them. 

Yes, we did have some nervous presenters, but that's quite normal. We will continue to work on:

1. Looking up at the audience, and not being glued to the note cards or paper. Many of the kids memorized the most important parts, and just spoke to the audience. Very impressive! 
2. Having a loud, clear voice for all to hear and understand.
3. Voice inflection...we want sounds that go up and down, excited and quiet, and not sounding like a robot.
4. Relax, smile, and enjoy!

The photos below will show you everyone's creativity. I can't wait to see the next one at the end of October.