Mr. Young's Classroom: September 30, 2022

Good Morning,

Student sharing their science work

Wow what a fun week! This week we started our "official" writing instruction. I use the Lucy Calkins writing units as a guide to my writing instruction. "The units are written with 1st and 2nd graders in mind. These young writers are chomping at the bit for something new. They feel very big now and want work that feels big and important. These units invite young writers into author studies that help them craft powerful true stories, science investigations and lab reports, and finally, into some very grown-up writing about reading. Across the writing genres, children learn to understand—and apply to their own writing—techniques they discover in the work of published authors. In Lessons from the Masters: Improving Narrative Writing students learn how to create engaging narratives by stretching out small moments and writing in detail. Unit 2, Lab Reports and Science Books, uses inspirational nonfiction texts to help students design and write about experiments and other scientific information. Unit 3, Writing About Reading, has students read closely and gather evidence from texts to craft persuasive arguments."

Art class this week

We are starting with the small moment unit. I explained the concept of a small moment story by comparing it to a watermelon. If a kid was to write about their school day, that would be the whole watermelon. If they chose to write about math class that day, that would be a slice of the watermelon. Within that slice is a seed or a specific part of math class. That seed is their small moment and what their story should be all about. The students have all begin to write their own small moment stories or personal narratives.

Wednesday is the day we put our reading groups aside and use the time to do a variety of things. During the winter it is the time we are at the mountain. It also serves as our time slots for our school wide inspiration hours, special events, and a variety of other events. I also use this time for literature projects. This is when I use a picture book as a base for a writing and/or language arts project based on the book we read. This week I read the book After the Fall by Dan Santat. "After the Fall imagines the familiar nursery rhyme character paralyzed by anxiety and afraid to climb the ladder to the top of the wall he famously fell off of. He lost his courage and his spirit of adventure after he cracked up. His bummed-out mood improves when he successfully makes a paper airplane, but when it gets stuck on the top of the wall, he must face his fear or lose it forever." After I read the story to them, we talked about how Humpty deal with his worries and his fears. The students identified ways in which he persevered. They then wrote a spot that they like to go to that can help them feel calm and relaxed. If you would like to hear the story read, check out the video below.

Part of our social emotional curriculum asks the students to identify how they want to feel when they are at school. This is different than rules or expectations. Once the kids decide what they want it becomes our "Classroom Charter." One of the words the kids mentioned was feeling calm in school. We spent this week talking about how we can create and keep a calm demeanor when we are at school. From belly breathing, to controlling our movements and tone, all of these things were discussed during the week.

NOTES:

*Scholastic book orders are suppose to be in today (Friday). If they arrive in time, I will be sending these home in your child's backpack (if they ordered).

*I am psyched that we can have parent volunteers in the classroom again. We are fortunate that several of you can volunteer this year. The volunteer times will start on Monday, October 3rd.

*Just a reminder that we will not have school on Friday, October 7th.

I hope you all have a great weekend. It is suppose to be beautiful weather wise and I hope to get out with my wife to enjoy the beauty of the season. I also hope to catch the Steeler game on Sunday and that they even pull off a win!

Peace,

Mr. Young