Hello again... time for an update.
I want to take some time to encourage you to remind your child to blog regularly. It is usually the only homework I give (aside from perhaps finishing some unfinished math), and I am impressed with the progress the students are making in writing.
We took the month of December off of the Nanowrimo novels, and then in January we went back to them, focusing on our writing lessons on revision and editing. Revision is the hardest part of writing, especially for children, and I am proud of how many took my lessons to heart and really thought about how to make improvements in their stories. This Thursday the "good copy" of the novel is due, and I will be marking it and doing some more editing so that they can publish their story in hard copy.
As we're finishing this up, we are also moving on to speech writing. I am doing this a bit early, as the district speeches will not be until early May, but I prefer that they have extra time to practice their speeches than to feel rushed. Because we only have writing a couple of times a week, they will need to work hard to finish their speeches before Spring Break.
In Socials, we have moved on to studying New France. We may do a small project with this unit, but nothing that will require the time and focus the Aboriginal project did. I do need to say how pleased I was by how well the groups worked together--group work was a new thing for many of them, and they flourished.
I hope your children told you about the Maple Man presentation we had on Thursday. What a great presentation! The students learned about the Quebec maple syrup cottage industry, got to play wooden spoons, and ate wonderful maple syrup taffy. Thanks to Ms. Ramsay for organizing this speaker to come present to the intermediate classes.
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Monday, February 13, 2012
Sunday, October 30, 2011
NaNoWriMo
I really wish they'd come up with a better name for this event!
I wanted to clarify what our writing program will be for the month of November.
We will not be blogging this month. We will resume weekly blogging in December.
Instead, our sole writing focus will be on writing a novel. Having said that, each student is setting his/her own writing goal for this novel. The NaNoWriMo website has laid out the following guidelines for length: http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/wordcount
I've encouraged each student to both challenge herself and to be realistic in setting her goal. Prolific writers can exceed the upper end of the range for their grade, while struggling writers will want to stick with the lower end of the range.
One fun thing is that a fellow teacher at Alexander Robinson Elementary is doing the NaNoWriMo challenge with her class, so we will be having some friendly competition. It will be fun to check in with them and see how they're coming along with their writing goals!
Our class has three computer blocks per week. Lately we seem to be spending a lot of that time just logging in and troubleshooting. However, once the students get used to logging in, they should have about two hours in the lab per week to devote on the writing. I do not anticipate they will need to do any writing at home this month at all. However, about mid-month, I will have a look at where each student is and I may recommend some students spend some time at home working on their stories, too.
I wanted to clarify what our writing program will be for the month of November.
We will not be blogging this month. We will resume weekly blogging in December.
Instead, our sole writing focus will be on writing a novel. Having said that, each student is setting his/her own writing goal for this novel. The NaNoWriMo website has laid out the following guidelines for length: http://ywp.nanowrimo.org/wordcount
I've encouraged each student to both challenge herself and to be realistic in setting her goal. Prolific writers can exceed the upper end of the range for their grade, while struggling writers will want to stick with the lower end of the range.
One fun thing is that a fellow teacher at Alexander Robinson Elementary is doing the NaNoWriMo challenge with her class, so we will be having some friendly competition. It will be fun to check in with them and see how they're coming along with their writing goals!
Our class has three computer blocks per week. Lately we seem to be spending a lot of that time just logging in and troubleshooting. However, once the students get used to logging in, they should have about two hours in the lab per week to devote on the writing. I do not anticipate they will need to do any writing at home this month at all. However, about mid-month, I will have a look at where each student is and I may recommend some students spend some time at home working on their stories, too.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
A bit of reading homework (and maybe a few activities?)
Thanks Parents/Guardians for getting those NaNoWriMo permission forms back in to me so quickly! (And a gentle reminder to those who haven't, please return them by Wednesday). November is going to be a whirlwind of writing with a firm deadline.
One of the great things that the NaNoWriMo (that is hard to type every time!) site offers is a great workbook for writing a novel. It's in pdf form, but it's over 120 pages long (!) so photocopying it for each student isn't feasible. However, you may print it out for your own child if you'd like, and otherwise we'll be using it as a guide during class (I'll project it onto the SMART board).
What I'm asking the students to do in advance of Thursday is to read the pdf (posted on the Kollen-Rupert class blog) up to page 10 and preferably to do the activities (they're meant to be fun and relatively easy) so that we can have a good chat about it on Thursday.
Hopefully the students will all read my post on Kidblog, but perhaps you could remind them to check (and again, if possible, print it out so they have a paper copy... I do realize it's an awful lot of paper, so no worries if you can't do this.)
Thanks so much!
Nancy Rupert
One of the great things that the NaNoWriMo (that is hard to type every time!) site offers is a great workbook for writing a novel. It's in pdf form, but it's over 120 pages long (!) so photocopying it for each student isn't feasible. However, you may print it out for your own child if you'd like, and otherwise we'll be using it as a guide during class (I'll project it onto the SMART board).
What I'm asking the students to do in advance of Thursday is to read the pdf (posted on the Kollen-Rupert class blog) up to page 10 and preferably to do the activities (they're meant to be fun and relatively easy) so that we can have a good chat about it on Thursday.
Hopefully the students will all read my post on Kidblog, but perhaps you could remind them to check (and again, if possible, print it out so they have a paper copy... I do realize it's an awful lot of paper, so no worries if you can't do this.)
Thanks so much!
Nancy Rupert
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Quicker updates!
A parent emailed me to let me know that subscribing to my blog via Google Reader sends updates much faster!
To use Google Reader to subscribe to blogs, you need a Google account, and then once signed in, at the top you can find the Reader under "more". Then all you need to do is "add a subscription" and enter my blog address (cut and paste the url above).
Just one more option that may or may not appeal.
To use Google Reader to subscribe to blogs, you need a Google account, and then once signed in, at the top you can find the Reader under "more". Then all you need to do is "add a subscription" and enter my blog address (cut and paste the url above).
Just one more option that may or may not appeal.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Homework Today
We had a beautiful day for the Terry Fox Run today, and the class did wonderfully acting as big buddies for Mrs. Loutet's K/1 students.
The class is excited to begin their daily blogging, which I'm thrilled about. They had some time yesterday during computers to practice blogging (writing about what they'd do if they were the principal of Alouette for a day). They decided they were ready to begin their daily blog today. They can write about anything (school appropriate, of course), and they can also attach a picture/video/etc. if it's relevant to their writing. The focus should be on the writing, though, not the attachment.
It is beneficial for parents to read the posts, and help with mechanics (spelling, grammar, etc.)
The daily blog will be graded based on participation, and this grade will be part of students' Language Arts mark. If they consistently do their blog and achieve at least the minimum amount of writing they will earn a B on the blog. To earn an A, they must consistently exceed the minimum.
The other homework for today is that the newspaper page is due tomorrow. Please encourage your child to fineline and colour for maximum presentation marks.
The class is excited to begin their daily blogging, which I'm thrilled about. They had some time yesterday during computers to practice blogging (writing about what they'd do if they were the principal of Alouette for a day). They decided they were ready to begin their daily blog today. They can write about anything (school appropriate, of course), and they can also attach a picture/video/etc. if it's relevant to their writing. The focus should be on the writing, though, not the attachment.
It is beneficial for parents to read the posts, and help with mechanics (spelling, grammar, etc.)
The daily blog will be graded based on participation, and this grade will be part of students' Language Arts mark. If they consistently do their blog and achieve at least the minimum amount of writing they will earn a B on the blog. To earn an A, they must consistently exceed the minimum.
The other homework for today is that the newspaper page is due tomorrow. Please encourage your child to fineline and colour for maximum presentation marks.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Daily Writing
I want to thank all the parents/guardians in Division 7 for being so quick to fill out the "Getting to Know You" and blog email forms and returning them. I have entered all the email addresses into my subscription box on my blog page, so you should have received a confirmation email (which you then would have had to respond to).
Hopefully it all worked well and you're reading this via an email update! :-)
I have had a couple of parents ask me about whether the daily writing activity I describe on the link to the right has started yet, and the answer is no. I am working with our prep teacher, Ms. Ramsay, to get the children acquainted with kidblog.com and to get them really comfortable with logging on, posting, commenting, deleting posts, etc. before sending them off to do it at home. I am hoping that we can begin our daily writing within the next week or two, and I will update the blog to announce this (and the children will write in in their planners, too).
Hopefully it all worked well and you're reading this via an email update! :-)
I have had a couple of parents ask me about whether the daily writing activity I describe on the link to the right has started yet, and the answer is no. I am working with our prep teacher, Ms. Ramsay, to get the children acquainted with kidblog.com and to get them really comfortable with logging on, posting, commenting, deleting posts, etc. before sending them off to do it at home. I am hoping that we can begin our daily writing within the next week or two, and I will update the blog to announce this (and the children will write in in their planners, too).