Monday was a great day!!! The students are having a lot of fun but are also able to get right down to work when we need to get stuff done. Our Daily 3 reading program is really going well and students have made it to 21 mins with non-stop reading!!!

In writing, we are working on ideas for writing using literature as a starting point to writing our own stories. We first took a look at “Tulip Sees America”; a story about a boy and his dog who go on travels throughout the United States describing all the things they see on the way. The students enjoyed the story and we used it as a springboard for our own writing on places we have been too. Using Google Earth, we flew around the world (just like my evil, twin brother Bob. If you don’t know who that is, just ask your child!) and plotted all the places we have been too. Using those places, students then listed things they did there and details about those events or things they remember about that trip. Our last step was to write out our stories about our adventures in the places we visited. The students all wrote some very interesting stories and I will be putting some on the blog very soon! Our next story is going to be an animal story using the book, “If You Give A Pig A Pancake”. Using that book, students will pick their own animal and describe the silly adventures that ensue. It should be quite interesting!

On Oct. 3, Highroad Academy will be offering a seminar on Spell to Write and Read. This is the program we use as our spelling program. We have had tremendous success in improving, not only student’s spelling skills, but also their reading and writing through a focus on phonograms and spelling rules. This seminar is for all new parents to our school or anyone who has not taken the seminar. You can also attend if you need a refresher on the foundations of the SWR program. Please contact me if you wish to attend. If you are new to the school or have not attended this class before, I would strongly, strongly, strongly, strongly encourage you to attend. It is a free seminar and runs from 9 am – 12 pm.

Request for help – For one part of our Daily 3 Reading Program, students will be involved in listening to books on tapes, cd’s and other devices. To fully integrate this into our reading program, I need some more of these devices for the classroom use. If you have any old portable tape player, portable CD players or unused MP3 players kicking around your house that you would not mind donating to the class, please contact me. I am hoping to collect a number of devices to use with the students. I have a few of my own already that we can use. However, the more we have, the more students we can fit into this section of the Daily 3. Thank you!

Sorry . . . Four Things!!!

There is no spelling or memory verse this week due to the shortened week. We will resume with both of those parts of our class program next week.