Week 9/9/13-9/13/13
Reading - Drama and Reader's Theater; DRA reading assessments
Writing - Writing process; responding to literature with writing

Week 9/16/13-9/20/13
Reading - Poetry and finish reader's theater
Writing - Kernel Stories (form of pre-writing) and Personal Narratives
Social Studies - Map Skills

Week 9/23/13-9/27/13
Reading - Finish Poetry and Non-fiction
Writing - Begin our first personal narrative essay to take through the writing process
Social Studies - The Four Regions of Texas

This week we spent a lot of time getting to know each other and learning to follow the classroom and school rules and procedures. We created a set of classroom rules, practiced school-wide expectations, and got into a routine. At the end of this week we were even able to begin a few reading lessons. We are learning that reading for school requires a lot of brain power and critical thinking skills. We are practicing thinking like 4th grade scholars while we read by recording our thinking. We have talked about all the different ways that we can respond to literature and are practicing thinking about our thinking (being metacognitively aware) while we read.

For the first few weeks of school, I will be posting on here what it is that we are learning. After that, I would like to have the students take over this page to tell you in their own words what they are learning each week.