March 6, 2020
This week students continued to add to their American Revolution books. We also discussed the time and type of writing that is expected of a fourth grader. Fourth graders should be able to hand-write two pages in 20 minutes. We tried this on Wednesday, and many of them saw how much they need to work on and improve their writing skills over the last trimester.
February 21, 2020
Students have been working on writing a chapter focused on their group's American Revolution topic. They are simply explaining the topic in one chapter, then going further to talk about why that topic is important in another chapter.
February 14, 2020
Our new writing unit will work along side our new reading unit, as students will be writing about history. They will be using the information they find on the American Revolution to write an informational piece about it.
February 7, 2020
Students wrote their persuasive essays this week, as we wrapped up our current writing unit. Several essays were shared on Friday.
January 31, 2020
This week we transitioned from personal essays to persuasive essays. Students came up with a thesis, reasons, and evidence, just like they did with personal essays. More important with the persuasive essays is determining the audience to which you are writing your essay. Students picked out what person, or group of people, they were aiming for when trying to persuade.
January 24, 2020
Students have continued to work on personal essays, this week starting to type a final copy of their most recent essay topic. We also worked on introductions and conclusions for our essays.
January 10, 2020
Our new writing unit has been focused on essays. Students have been writing several different essays the past week. They think of a thesis statement, come up with three reasons to support that statement, then come up with three pieces of evidence to support each reason.
December 13, 2019
Students continued to add to their second informational book this week. They also took the post assessment for this unit, writing a story with edits and revisions in 45 minutes.
December 6, 2019
This week students completed work on their first informational book, then used all of the knowledge they have learned during this unit to start a new informational book on a new topic.
November 22, 2019
Students worked on adding a table of contents, introduction, and transition words to their informational books this week. They also continued to edit and revise their subheadings, and adding more text features as well.
November 15, 2019
This week students started adding text features to their informational books. They also continued to add to and make changes to their writing by using specific facts and details.
November 8, 2019
Students spent the week writing their informational books, focusing on one specific chapter or subheading each day. We also discussed writing headings that were creative and interesting to the reader.
November 1, 2019
Students chose an informational topic to write about this week. They needed to pick a topic they knew enough about to teach someone about it. After choosing their topic, they had to come up with 4 or 5 different subtopics to go along with their main topic. Some students got started on their "books" at the end of the week, while others were still planning out their topics.
October 24, 2019
Students continued to edit and revise their realistic fiction stories. They also took an end-of-unit assessment, where they wrote, edited, and revised a new story in 45 minutes.
October 18, 2019
This week we had an editing and revising boot camp to work on punctuation in writing. Students worked on placing capital letters, ending punctuation, commas, apostrophes, and quotation marks in the correct places on some practice sheets, then went back to their realistic fiction stories to make some edits.
October 11, 2019
Students began their second realistic fiction story this week. Before writing their story, they had to plan out their characters, the story arc, a problem and a resolution for that problem. The idea also needed to be an everyday, realistic story, which some students struggled with.
October 4, 2019
This week we discussed and worked on writing an ending to our realistic fiction story. We looked at several questions students need to consider when ending a story, and making sure it really makes the story come full circle, with no loose ends.
September 27, 2019
Students continued to add more to their realistic fiction stories. We have worked on editing and revising, including a focus on punctuation, capitalization, and paragraphing.
September 20, 2019
This week students started to write their stories. We discussed writing different types of leads and picking the one that fit best. They also worked adding details and descriptions to really ground their characters in the story instead of having them float along.
September 13, 2019
Our first writing unit focuses on writing realistic fiction. We spent most of the week taking a deep dive into the character we are creating for this story. We discussed thinking about that character's internal and external characteristics, their struggles, and their motivations. It is important to really get to know your character before you attempt to write a story about them.