Write, write, write, write........

    After spending time reviewing our paragraphs about the beach and looking at transition words to use between the ideas we moved on to writing our own paragraphs. 
    Students were give 2-3 periods of class time to write. They were asked to choose between 5 topics and make it their own. We have some interesting ideas! On Friday we went to the computer lab to type it up. As most of us know, computers can be both our greatest friends and our most frustrating enemies! For the most part, students got logged on and started typing but we will visit the lab again on Monday and hopefully be able to print. I will then be asking the student to do some peer editing before handing in the final copy for evaluation. You can ask your son or daughter to see their paragraph and go over the content.
                                                     
OVER THE WEEKEND!!! Can you please ensure your school email is working properly. If our printer is not functional on Monday I will ask the students to share their work with me in Google Docs.

Have a great weekend!

Remember!!
Next week week we are excited about the JAG JOG event on Tuesday!! Remember to bring in your  $$$ and be ready to participate in this fun day!

We will participating in something called the GLOBAL READ ALOUD. You can click on the link on the side of the page to learn more. The book we will be reading is called The Fourteenth Goldfish and I have connected with a teacher in California. I am looking forward to this experience!

Hamburger Paragraphs!

                

        After reading the classes All About Me projects I was able to pull out some working points for the class to focus on to improve their writing. I sent the assignment home to be signed by a parents and I am looking to get them back to keep in their portfolio.

       This week we talked about the main idea of a paragraph and ensuring everything we include in our writing is relevant. Students read a paragraph about marsupials and had to decide what sentences did not belong. Young writers can get easily side tracked in their paragraphs. After this week I hope they will be able to recognize when that is happening!

                We also wrote topic sentences and talked about how they connect to the concluding sentence. I used the image of a hamburger to illustrate the role of the topic sentence and the concluding sentence.

                                   

Transition train!

   

    It was very clear that the students in my grade 7 classes needed practice with transition words. We talked about how transition words could be looked at like links, or couplings, between train cars. Transition words provide the connection between the sentences, just as the coupling on a train provides the connection between its cars.

                                            

The students connected sentences with transition words and were give a table of examples of transition words to use going forward in their writing. We also talked about COHERENCE in their writing. COHERENCE is a smooth movement from one idea to the next in a paragraph. Transition words as well as planning out the arrangement of the ideas will help with  COHERENCE in their writing.

Next week!

1. We will be talking about types of sentences. Talk about what that     might mean with your child.

2.  We will be writing another paragraph that I will read looking for      improvement on the specific concepts I have covered.

3.  Look over transition word list- can you add more? Show me    

     Monday!!

Meet the parents! 

       Thank you to all the parents who came to see me on Tuesday night. Meet the teacher night is always very busy but I was glad to connect and answer some questions. Please know that if you have personal questions or comments you can always reach me by email (jessica.sutherland@ocsb.ca).

       Much of this week was spent finishing our All About Me assignment. On Monday they revised and edited their paragraphs so they were ready to be published (good copy). This is often a very difficult part of the writing process for young writers but an important skill to practice.  This chart helps the students understand what they need to think about when they are reflecting on what they have written:

                                                    

      The students have impressed me with their public speaking! Many of them were quite nervous but were able to  take a risk and share a little bit about themselves. I have enjoyed reading over the paragraphs and looking at the shirt designs they came up with. 

Some examples:

Next week we will be looking closer at what makes a good paragraph. To get ready for next week students should think about the following questions:

- What is a topic sentence?

- What is a concluding sentence?

- How do we ensure a paragraph that we write is unified and coherent? 

REMINDER:

- Bring a book for independent reading time on Monday during our double block. 

- Pat yourself on the back for the presentations this week! Great work grade 7's!

                                           

WEEK 1

We did it! We made it through our first week of grade 7 with smiles on our faces. The students have impressed me with their knowledge of my SMART board, good focus during silent reading time and their desire to do well on our first writing assignment.

  What did we do in our 3 short classes together?

 Started to talk about the steps of the writing process

                         Pre-writing- BRAINSTORMING- ORGANIZING THOUGHTS
                         First Draft- GET IT DOWN ON PAPER
                         Revising- GETTING IT GOOD


Students are writing a paragraph about themselves that they will be sharing with the class. Next week they are going to be asked to create a visual representation of themselves through a T-Shirt design based on the paragraph they have written. Bring markers and pencil crayons!

Reminders:

 Bring a book from home for silent reading. Something you want to read! Thank you to those who have have done this already.

Bring pencil crayons or markers for the visual portion of the assignment.

Sign up for Remind at www.remind.com  Class Code: suther7

                              A picture of my two girls heading to their first day of S/K and grade 1