Celebrating Writing with the Flaming Fish

Here is what has been happening with the Flaming Fish this week:

• In reading, students are reading books and reporting to their peers what their opinion is about the book, an important character, or the author. We used the “OREO” idea to state our Opinion about the book. Provided at least one Reason to support our opinion. Then gave text Evidence or Examples to support our reason. We finished up with a restatement of our Opinion or a question related to our opinion.  (Notice that this spells out OREO when you put it together). You can check out our Oreo opinions on our blogs!
• Information regarding RAZ Kids - an online reading program - is coming home with your child today. Please look for the RAZ Kids letter and login information.

• In writing workshop, we just published our first pieces for our September 23 sharing and celebration day. We shared stories in small groups and celebrated our writing. Students also took time to reflect on their involvement and success with the writing process. They documented their thinking and added this to their learning journals. Electronic copies are in their google drive if you are interested in looking. More details from our sharing day and a short slide show are listed and linked below.

• Math: We have practiced using  the standard algorithm to complete addition and subtraction and with large numbers. We continue to build and develop our mathematical thinking with our Number of Day routine. We will finish up subtraction practice next week and move into multiplication.

• Students have also written and posted their first entries on their own individual blogs. Very exciting!!! Check them out and please make some comments. We would love to hear from you!

Celebrating Writing...

Last week, all the Flaming Fish celebrated their first published stories. We had been working on these stories for about month, learning about different types of writing - narratives, informational, and opinion writing. We also learned about and practiced using all the parts of the writing process. We began this writing journey by jotting down story ideas and parts on index cards. Then we organized those ideas into a story that made the most sense. We worked on revising our work by thinking about adding more details, removing unnecessary information, moving ideas around, and substituting boring overused words for more interesting and spicy words. Then we worked with our classmates to edit our work for capitalization, grammar usage, punctuation, and spelling. Finally, we published our work in a variety of formats. One of the best parts was sharing our stories with our friends while eating some yummy snacks.