Merry October!

Welcome to October!

Well, it certainly doesn't feel like October in Utah, but the calendar claims it is. We have several big units we are wrapping up, and new ones we will beginning.

I want to thank you all for your patience. These last two weeks have been difficult for me personally. We just seemed to get back to "normal" after the wildfire excitement, when my youngest (3 year old) got pneumonia. It has been a long 8 days of fevers and doctor visits, some lasting through the night.

I promised you progress reports weekly, and I have been unable to fulfill that promise these past few weeks. Here's hoping these next few weeks become boring and mundane in the LaDuke household!

Writing

The students should have edited and published a personal memoir by Wednesday of next week. It is due right before we break for the Fall Break (UEA).

We have studied the genre of memoirs. We have discussed the author's objective. We have examined many other memoirs and looked closely at the craft the author used to demonstrate why that moment in their life was so meaningful. We have each chosen a mentor text in which we admired the craft the author used and decided to try using the same technique in our writing. We have been practicing editing text for capitalization, spelling and punctuation errors (everyday edits) and will be using those skills to help edit our peers work as well as our own.

All of these skills are what I am looking for in their writing.

I will be using the following rubric to assess this writing.

Memoir Writing Rubric

Criteria	4	3	2	1
Memorable Moment	Memoir focuses on a single moment that seems significant to the author’s life.	Memoir focuses on a single moment that seems kind of significant to the author’s life.	Memoir focuses on a single moment that does not seem significant to the author’s life.	Author does not seem to be aware of the significance of the moment.
Structure	Author clearly “shows” attitudes and feelings numerous times through the thoughts, action and dialogue of the characters.	Author’s attitudes and feelings before are evident & occur numerous times through the thoughts and actions of the character.	Direct statements indicate the author’s feelings and attitudes and/or some events are not necessarily significant.	Memoir includes irrelevant events that cause the reader confusion in trying to determine the before feelings and attitudes.
Format	Memoir is neatly done and published in an appropriate and attractive format and could be used as a model for others.	Memoir is neatly done and published in an appropriate format.	Format of memoir may or may not be appropriate. Memoir may or may not be neat.	Format of memoir is not appropriate and piece is not published neatly.
Conventions	Memoir is error-free.	Memoir contains minimal mistakes that do not interfere with meaning.	Numerous minor errors often make memoir difficult to read.	Many errors in spelling, capitalization, and punctuation often interfere with meaning.

A score will be determined out of the 16 maximum possible points.

In addition to the grade assigned by the rubric, the students also receive a grade for their work in the study. Along the way, there have been required steps in the process. They have received points at each step. These papers will come home with their progress report once I have completed the grading process.

Reading

We have finished reading Maniac Magee and are now starting When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead (the 2010 Newberry Award Winner). This book also has fascinating characters, explores time travel, friendships, and learning to accept ourselves.

We will be wrapping up our Character Unit in the next week. The students will have a culminating project that they will work on at home.

Questions to ask at home during independent reading:

Who is the protagonist? How do you know?

Who is the antagonist? How do you know?

What kinds of conflict are you seeing in your story?

Did any of the characters change during the story? What made them change?

Multiplication:

We have begun our multiplication unit. We are currently discussing how multiplication is just repeated addition (4x2 is the same as 4+4, or 6x3 is the same as 6+6+6).

We will also be looking for patterns in our facts. This is the same as skip counting that they learned in Kindergarten. Looking for the patterns in the products which will help them see the underlying process of multiplication and how it relates to addition.

Maps of Utah:

We just concluded our introductory unit to Utah and where Utah is on the map of the US. Next we will begin learning about the peoples of Utah, beginning with the ancient people.