Thursday, April 10 - parent council tonight

 Hi parents,

Today was a very different kind of day! In the morning we did our Pysanky Eggs, which was really fun. Thank you so much to the parent volunteers who made this activity possible. The eggs have been sent home. You'll have to melt / pick off the remaining wax to fully appreciate how nice they are.

That took up most of our morning. We had a little bit of time to collaboratively make a rubric for the Book in a Box project. The students shared their ideas of what separates a 'great' paragraph, from an 'okay' paragraph. It was interesting how they were all very aware of the importance of capitalization at the start of a sentence or proper noun.....

Here's what the class came up with:

WHAT MAKES A GOOD PARAGRAPH?

-Topic sentence that hooks readers 

-Capitals for names, and at start of each sentence

-3-5 sentences per paragraph

-Writing is interesting (descriptive words. Details, sentences start in different ways, and are different lengths (simple AND compound sentences)

-Neat printing

-New line for each new paragraph (and INDENTED)

-Clearly explain how each item represents an important aspect of the story

-Shows a thorough / deep understanding of the story

So that's what I'll be marking their paragraphs on when we do finish up the Book in a Box project. There will also be marks for presentation skills (clear voice, staying on topic, addressing the whole audience, etc.), but we'll worry about that next week.

In the afternoon, we cleaned up the Kiskas, read poetry, and practiced spelling. Then we went to Social Emotional Learning with Mr. Ripka, and ended the day with Music.

I forgot to take pictures of the eggs until the end of the day - would've loved to have a picture of them all together, but here are a few I was able to find at the coathooks. :)

Tomorrow is our spelling quiz, good luck!

Zac