This week, we will work on the following:

• Reading: On Friday, we began preparing to read Frindle, by Andrew Clements, together. We talked about the stages of plot (problem, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution) and placed them on a bell curve, and the students also learned and defined some of the vocabulary words from the novel.  This week, we will begin reading Frindle.  While reading, we will discuss any additional vocabulary words, which the students will write in their notebooks.  After every two or three chapters, we will stop and complete an activity that may focus on character development, character analysis, making predictions based on what has happened so far, and making judgments about a character’s actions.

•  Language Arts: This week, I am going to introduce Daily Oral Language (DOL) to the students. DOL focuses on editing sentences that have various errors, including (but not limited to) capitalization, punctuation, and incorrect verb tenses.  Each day, Language Arts class will begin with DOL.  The students will receive a binder, which they will use exclusively for DOL, and they will receive a new handout that will have 10 sentences on it each week; we will correct two sentences each day.  I will ask for volunteers to come to the board and make the necessary changes, and once everything is correct, everyone will make the corrections on his/her DOL handout. 

The students will begin working in Simple Solutions on grammar lessons, as well.

• Social Studies: Beginning this week, the students are going to learn about maps – how to read a map, physical maps, elevation maps, historical maps, regions, special-purpose maps, and current-events maps. We will also begin learning about our market economy.