Language Arts: Instructions

Today I had students work on writing a set of instructions. These instructions are to be as specific as possible and are due tomorrow (Thursday). See this post for more information.

Language Arts: Writing Instructions

Today we started looking at how you would write instructions. I gave the students an example and we worked through it as a class and then I had students talk about a task with a partner. There was no homework for this, but students were to think about what they would write instructions to next class (I gave them a list to choose from):

1. Getting ready for bed.
2. Planting a seed.
3. Cleaning up after dinner.
4. Warming up for a sports practice.
5. Getting ready to go to the beach (and coming home)
6. Going on a trip to Mexico (by airplane)
7. Anything else you want to do (must be approved by me)

Language Arts: Desrcriptive Sentences

We worked today on making sentences more descriptive. The example I gave was "I sat at my desk" which I then changed to "I dreamily sat at my huge, wooden, untidy desk." Students were given 10 simple sentences which they were to make more descriptive. This work was to be done for homework if it was not finished.

Language Arts: Poetry and Letters

Tomorrow (Friday) we will be writing our good copies for our letters and our poems. If students have not given me a rough draft to look over, they MUST come with a rough draft on Friday. Those students who have missed the whole week will be given time to work on those on Friday. Today some of the students talked about similes and were given a small amount of homework. They were given 10 things and were asked to write a simile for each one. This was to be completed for Friday.

Language Arts: Rough Copies

Today we had time to work on our rough copies for both our Limericks and our letters (to my sponsored child). Those must be done for tomorrow.

Letters to Phichit

Today we started writing letters to Phichit, the little boy from Thailand that I sponsor. The students were read the letter I received last week and then they were to write a letter in response.

The rough copies of these letters are due Wednesday.

Poetry: Diamante Poems

Today I introduced Diamante poems. I showed 4 examples (one is included below) and we talked about one way that the poems can be written. Due to time constraints we didn't get to the second way we can write the poem. The plan is to continue with that tomorrow and then to move on to first creating criteria for a good Diamante poem and then writing our own.

Example of a Diamante Poem:

Rain Forest
Damp, dark
Raining, dripping, steaming
Monkey, jaguar, frog, anaconda
Climbing, stalking, slinking
Furry, scaled
Endangered

Poetry: Shape Poems

Today we started writing Shape Poems. Yesterday we had talked about them and came up with the following criteria for a good shape poem:

• Clear, big, bold letters

• Creative

• Make sure it looks like something

• Make sure it has an interesting shape

• The words have to make sense

• The shape and the poem must match

• Correct spelling*

• Proper grammar*

The last two have a * because I told them if they make intentional errors it is acceptable.

For homework I have asked the students to finish brainstorming the words they want to include in their poem. They do not yet need to arrange the words into a picture. We will be doing that on Wednesday.