HOME SCHOOL ASSISTANCE PROGRAM

Kindergarten Writing:  The kindergarteners are so proud of all of the work they have done in their Writer’s Notebook! We are working hard on learning how to sound out words, rhyming, and creating word families. We practiced this with our fun Dr. Seuss hats. More favorites include Sneezy the Snowman, Rainbow Fish, and Green Eggs & Ham. Coming up we will be playing a fun Rainbow Roll Game with sight words and go on a word hunt with our Spring Words as  we “Write Around the Room”. The Kindergarten students are making wonderful growth and have been very excited to learn!

First Grade Writing:  We have been busy trying out some new strategies for sounding out unknown words, adding details to our writing, and including adding punctuation to the end of our writing. We also love adding new words in our spelling dictionaries each week. Favorite writing pieces include, “When I Grow Up,” “All About Me,” and our pot of gold stories. These First Graders always try their best and have become incredible writers with many ideas!

2nd/3rd Writing: In mid-February, we wrapped up the Word Choice trait with a fun descriptive writing assignment. Each student picked a favorite treat or dessert to describe. They used their awesome adjectives in hopes the class would be able to guess what their treat or dessert was. Most recently we have been learning about the Voice trait. Students have learned how to use point of view, emotions, and tone to reflect voice in their writing. Some great mentor texts we read that demonstrate voice were My Big Dog by Janet Stevens, The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt, and Earrings by Judith Viorst. It has been fantastic to see the students apply what they have learned about voice in their persuasive writing pieces. After Spring Break we will begin learning about Sentence Fluency and our final end-of-the-year writing project. 

4th/5th Writing: We completed our unit on Word Choice in February. The 4th/5th graders learned a lot about choosing their words carefully. They also began thinking about the specific details/word choice (awesome adjectives and vivid verbs) to include in their writing. Our goal is “painting a picture” in the minds of our audience. Many students presented their Memoirs that demonstrated their growing skills in the art of appealing to the reader’s senses. We’re currently discovering how developing “Voice” in writing can change the game. Your child can identify the voice/tone in writing. To practice, 4th/5th graders have written a couple of “quick writes” where they practiced bringing their character and writing to life. Both pieces involved taking on a new point of view and getting into the mind of their character of choice. We’ll soon begin our Persuasive writing piece, where their “voices” will be heard, as they take a stance for or against a topic of their choice. We’ll look at several popular ideas in class this week!

6th-12th Writing: Students have been working on writing argumentative essays.  They have been learning how to conduct research using online databases to find magazine, journal, or newspaper articles as well as websites.  In doing so, they have used their skills to evaluate sources.  They have learned how to make an argument by offering evidence and support and to  address the counterargument with a rebuttal.  They should have their first drafts complete when we return from Spring Break as we will start revising and editing our essays and conducting Peer Reviews.  To end the semester, students will be using the same research they gathered for the argumentative essays and create an infographic (a visual representation of their arguments) using the program Canva.