Another good day

Although I stayed up way too late to watch just.one.more. tv show last night, I got through today very well. (I told you the long days are better!:D)

In reading we analyzed character. To illustrate, I read aloud yet another favorite book that also happens to be a princess book, The Paperbag Princess. I guided them in looking at the things the characters said and did and labeling the appropriate character traits. It's always difficult, because their vocabularies are so limited. Words like nice and mean or shy pop up like, all the time. And when it was their turn, I either didn't see work or it wasn't an internal trait, more like a mood, such as curious about a test. Ack. So we'll do more tomorrow.

In writing, we continued the letter. They did well. Everyone was on task quietly. I circulated, giving feedback. Oh, I don't really do the kind of conferencing others talk about, no pulling one student up to my desk while the class works. No way, jose! I just circulate and go over any glaring issues or helpful comments I see.

One of my classes listened to Simon & Garfunkel, because I was playing it, not because they wanted to. I think I heard someone singing along, too, which was odd. But they didn't complain. :) I think the other class heard some Brandi Carlile and some classical. Good job for expanding those musical horizons, me!

Oh! For the warm up, I made them discover pronouns by telling them to fix sentences wherein names were repeated superfluously. Such as, Sally went to Sally's room and fed Sally's fish. They all knew what to do to make it sound 'normal,' but most of them didn't know what it was called. So yay on that. And it was quick too. Tomorrow we'll watch the Grammar Rock song and do some quick exercises in the Dreaded Grammar Book.

Homework today was dismal. The assignments have been about the vocabulary and the numbers and direction following is way down. A couple kids tried to turn in something that was less than half done and I gave it right back to them. No more messing around with this halfway nonsense. Do it all and do it right.

Tonight's assignment, I hope, might be better. They have to draw a picture or cartoon to represent each word. Over the weekend they will write each word several times and write a sentence using each one. Monday there will be a quiz! Dun dun dun.