Friday, April 4

 Hi parents,

We had a really good day today! 

In the morning the students finished up work from earlier in the week, and made some big improvements to their pendulum whacker devices. 

The spelling quiz went quite well - a lot of A's today - and then we went to play a math game with our buddies. 

When we got back, we started the writing portion of the Book in a Box project. I gave this class this exemplar for how a 'character item' writeup should look:

We talked about how the paragraphs weave in lots of important information about the character, without being robotic. We learn about Samar's significance in the story, how she connects with the setting and other characters, and how she overcomes problems. Ideally with this project, there should be a good amount of overlap between the items - it should be clear how characters, items, settings, and events all come together to form a story.

Anyway - I didn't actually think the students would be able to meet that standard on their first effort. But I was happily surprised to see that wasn't the case! The paragraphs I've seen so far have been very clear and descriptive, while also maintaining a good 'flow' and not being choppy or robotic. 

I'm sure the conversations you've had at home have contributed to the students having a deep understanding of their books!

Have a nice weekend,

Zac