A Star, A Wish, and Author's Chair
Can you believe February is winding down and we are looking ahead to a 50 degree week?! We are SO looking forward to getting outside and fully enjoying the sunshine and beautiful weather we are expecting.... hopefully you are all getting the opportunity to get out and enjoy the sunshine on this long President's Day weekend.
This week we have wrapped up our writing study on Author's Craft. We have been focusing on writing our own small moments stories (something we learned about towards the beginning of the year). Next, we practiced editing our writing, using a different colored pencil in order to show the changes in our writing so that when we made our final drafts we could make sure to add in our edits. Our editing included making sure we spelled word wall words correctly, as well as making sure we used caps and ends in each of our sentences. Upon editing our stories, we read various mentor texts, helping to outline various aspects of writing that make stories interesting. These elements include using sound words, dialogue between characters, word shapes, ellipsis, and more. Next, we got to re-read our stories and add in our own dialogue and/or sound words into our writing. We then rewrote our stories into books, adding detailed pictures onto each page.
When our friends finished up their stories they took time to read them to a partner. During this time the listener was not able to talk throughout the story. Instead they spent focused time listening and looking at the story so that when the story was finished they could tell their partner something they liked about the story and then something that they thought could be fixed - another step in the editing process.
This past week as the last few friends finished up their stories and detailed pictures, we began Author's Chair. Each friend began taking turns reading their stories to the class. Our class practiced all 5 components of whole body listening and focused hard on the stories being shared. After each story, we asked friends to share a STAR and a WISH - something they loved about the story and something they wished the author had done differently. We always start with a STAR, the positive aspects of the stories. We then end with our WISH, the little improvements that authors' are always looking to make to help improve their writing.
In addition to all the fun we had wrapping up our writing unit, Friday was World Read Aloud Day. We celebrated with Mrs. Powell's class by Skyping with a first grade class from Monterrey, Mexico! We were able to meet their Principal and their teacher. Next, their teacher read us one of her favorite stories, A Mother For Choco. Then, Mrs. Powell read a story to their class, Froggy's First Kiss. Finally, we were able to spend some time asking questions and answering questions that the children from the other class had. We were most excited to hear them speak to us in Spanish, even though they speak only English at school. We learned that even though it is winter for them too, they were enjoying 81 degree weather!!! We think that the most exciting thing for them was to see a video of the snow outside!!! Their class erupted with excitement when Mrs. Powell panned the camera outside the window for them to see. They expressed that they would love to be able to feel the snow and see what it looks like in real life (I was wishing to feel that 80 degree sunshine)!!!!!
