Apologies for the late update tonight. The last couple weeks of a given semester are really busy for a teacher who tutors, has papers to grade, and also tries to keep up on his karate. And it is at this time that I need karate! But I digress...
Today we did our DAZE (I have no idea what DAZE stands for, but it's a horrible acronym for a test which focuses on fluency in reading, no?) testing for reading, which is the second part of our winter benchmark testing. It only lasted three minutes, and I haven't graded them yet, but at least that part is done.
We've been doing our best to get caught up on Reading so that we can get this last test in before next week is over. Right now the plan is to have the theme test for chapter 7 next Thursday. Tomorrow we will be talking about helping verbs and reading a story about a squid attack. Today was quite an odd little story in the reading book about a girl who dreamed of swimming with a blue whale.
And speaking of reading reading reading, I've been reading to the kids a book cumbersomely titled Qwerty Stevens Back in Time with Benjamin Franklin. It's by Dan Gutman, whose work I love because it's so easy to read out loud. Not sure why some authors' work flows more fluently out of the mouth than others, but I've tried to read the work of two of my favorite authors (Gary Paulsen and C.S. Lewis), but it's horribly difficult to read out loud. Gutman, though...it works for me. And I really like this book. It's really funny, and it very accurately represents Benjamin Franklin, despite being a work of science fiction. You'll have to ask your child about Ben Franklin's "air baths", which is actually a fact about him.
Look out for a take-home writing assignment going home tomorrow night (Wednesday). They will also have their green reading books with them, so that they can do these up the right way.
Okay, I'm fading fast. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns. We're zeroing in on the end of this semester! Hard to believe we're almost halfway done...
2 comments:
I remeber that book that was soo good! How was your Thanksgiving?
Have a great Christmas break!
It's a wonderful book! I told my class today that with all of the great books available out there in the world, nobody ever has any excuse not to be reading something amazing.
My Thanksgiving was perfect. Hope yours was too, and I also hope that you and your family have a great break also, Kate!
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