We are working this week to revise, edit, and begin publishing our memoirs. We started writing these last month and over the past few weeks the kids have accumulated a handful of different stories. Along the way we've learned about stretching small moments, using descriptive passages, paragraphing, punctuation, and so much more. This weekend the kids will bring home their drafts on Thursday and use the four-day weekend to publish these. They started publishing in class today and will have more time tomorrow. Some have chosen to wait and type them at home. If you want to help them type please be sure to type it just as they have written it (spelling and all). These pieces serve as an artifact demonstrating where they are as writers at this moment in time.
In reading this week the kids have formed book clubs. On Monday they selected their books and decided what pages to read each night. The books selected were: Sheep, The Littles, Star Girl, Year of the Rat, and The Dragon Slayer Academy. The majority, if not all, of their reading will be completed in class each day. We are trying to give them at least 30 or 35 minutes to read each afternoon. We are also working to build conversations that go beyond just remembering favorite parts of the story. As always, our work is designed to reinforce the idea that reading is about understanding. In our first day of practicing for these literature discussions I noticed they discussed things such as:
* Wondering about the choices the author has made
* Thinking about whether something like this has or could happen in the real world
* Wondering about a character we don't know much about
* Discussing things we don't understand in the story
* Noting the relationships between illustrations and text
* Making predictions as to what might happen later in the story
* Make guesses as to why something has happened in the story
And now here are a few items from our MAT, Mr. Chris...
Telling Time
We have been working on learning to
tell time to the minute. The class is
learning that the long hand is the minute hand and the short hand is the hour
hand. We have been practicing with the
clocks each day and learning strategies to remember what all those big numbers
on the clock mean. One strategy we’ve
learned to help us remember how many minutes the big numbers represent is to
take the number and multiply by 5. For
example if the minute hand is pointing at the 10 you can multiply 5 x 10 to
help you remember the 10 equals 50 minutes.
As a class we have found it tricky
to figure out what time it is as the minute hand nears the top of the
hour. Most students want to jump ahead
to the next hour. For example if it is
3:47 students often make the mistake of thinking it is 4:47 because it looks
like the hour hand is almost pointing at the 4.
To help the class remember that it is not the next hour until the hour
hand reaches or passes the number we placed a clock in the room without a
minute hand. When the class looks at the
clock without the minute hand it is easier for them to see that it is not 10:00
until the hour hand reaches the 10. A
few students noticed that the hour hand moves incrementally between the hour
and figured out that each minute between the hour represents a fractional part
of each hour. They discovered that if
the hour hand is pointing at exactly one of the minutes between the hour it
represents about 12 minutes allowing them to more accurately predict what the
time is without the minute hand.
This week we began working on
elapsed time word problems. Each student
worked on creating three word problems involving elapsed time, then they chose
one of their problems to publish for the class.
We went around the room as a class and attempted to solve the problems
our classmates created for us. It was a
lot of fun seeing the problems the students created and some of the different
strategies they used to solve the problems.
I wanted to take a minute and
introduce myself to those of you I have not had an opportunity to meet
yet. My name is Chris Tiscornia; the
kids affectionately call me “Mr. Chris.”
I grew up in Michigan and moved to South Carolina with my wife about 6
years ago. Before entering the M.A.T.
program at USC I spent almost 20 years in the restaurant business, mostly in
Michigan. Since entering the program at
USC I have learned so much about working with kids and helping them to become
proficient learners. I enjoy all kinds
of sports and am an avid golfer, although I don’t seem to have much time for
golf right now. Getting to know each of
your children has been a lot of fun for me and I can say I am excited to come
into school each day to see what new wonderings and connections they will
make. I look forward to getting to know
all of you as well as the semester progresses.
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