Writing Assignment!

Dear 2A Students,

Please view the short film below and use the Comments to practice your writing skills.  After watching, please COMMENT on this post with 2-3 complete sentences reflecting on the video.  This can include a short summary of the video, telling about why you liked it/didn't like it, telling about your favorite part, or making a connection to your own life.

Please remember to use capital letters and punctuation where needed.  Try your best at spelling; sound out the words that are hard, and try your best. 

To comment, click below where it says Comments.  Then click on Name/Url and type in your FIRST NAME only.  (You don't need to type anything in the URL box.)

Type your sentences about the video in the box.  Click PREVIEW to see what your comment will look like, and click PUBLISH when you are ready to post your comment.  DON'T FORGET TO WRITE YOUR FIRST NAME ONLY, AND HAVE FUN!

Daily 5 Update

Today we continued practicing Read to Self, but we also introduced and began practicing Read to Someone!

There are lots of things we must remember to do in order to help us build stamina during RtS:

-Pick a spot and get started quickly
-Read the whole time
-Use 3 inch voices
-Take turns reading & choosing books
-Check for Understanding every page or 2
-Sit EEKK! (Ask your kiddo to explain this to you!) :)

Here are some photos of us during Daily 5 today:

We got up to over 5 minutes in our first stamina challenge today!!

First Day of Daily 5!

Today we began our introduction of The Daily 5, which is a large part of our Language Arts block. Almost all of us remembered D5 from last year, so today was mostly for review and practice.

Today we talked about "Read to Self." We talked about what Read to Self looks like and sounds like, and some students volunteered to model correct and incorrect behaviors. We did a great job pointing out what they wrong and how we could fix it.

Last, we had our first "stamina challenge" where we tried to read to self for 3 straight minutes without losing focus or getting off task. First we only made it to 28 seconds! (Harder than it sounds!) But our 2nd try we made it to 3 minutes and 20 seconds.

Here are some of us during the stamina challenge.

Today we also began our CAFE program, in which we'll be learning and practicing strategies to help us become better readers. CAFE stands for:
-Comprehension (I understand what I read.)
-Accuracy (I can read the words.)
-Fluency (I can read accurately with expression.)
-Expand Vocabulary (I know, find, and use interesting words.)

The strategies we practiced today were:
-check for understanding (comprehension)
-cross checking (accuracy)
-back up and re-read (comprehension)

Ask your child to show you our hand motions for cross-checking!

Happy 4-day week! :)

Book Trailers

Yesterday during Daily 5, we learned about what it means to pick "Good Fit" books to read during our "Read to Self" time.  (More on that later.)  :)

One of the questions we ask ourselves when selecting Good Fit books is: "Do I find it interesting; do I want to read it?"

Well, when trying to decide if I am interested in seeing a movie, I watch the movie trailer and ask myself if I want to see it.  Now there are BOOK TRAILERS! 

Below are some Book Trailers that students may view to decide if the book is interesting to them.













I hope you enjoyed these Book Trailers and found one that you might enjoy reading.  I will make this a regular blog update and will continue to add new Book Trailers to check out!

Keep reading!