For the Sake of Momentum

First order up for business: Spelling!

Here is Miss Priser's list for this week:

• attitude
• chocolate
• exercise
• grumble
• island
• nation
• pajamas
• reptile
• stubborn
• tangle
• example
• her
• maybe
• more

Here's my list:

• attitude
• chocolate
• exercise
• grumble
• island
• nation
• pajamas
• reptile
• stubborn
• particular
• mammoth
• marvelous

Definitions are due tomorrow! Test on Friday.

The next thing we have is that tonight the kids have brought home a writing assignment in their green textbooks for reading. We read the story today in class, which led to much discussion. The story about Kristi Yamaguchi reminded me about the year she won silver in the Olympics (I believe it was silver), but was outshone by the hubbub surrounding Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan. Ah, fond memories of mid-90's ice skating drama.

Also, they've been writing their essays one paragraph at a time. On Friday, they wrote their introduction, and today they wrote the first of their paragraphs for the body of their work. My hope is that by next week they will have a piece that they can type up in the computer lab for "publication" before Spring Break. Today we talked about "bridging words" to use at the start of a paragraph, such as "First off..." or "For starters..." I also told them that because this is an expository essay, we want to avoid the word "I". I also told them to never ever end a piece of writing with, "I hope you liked my report..." Even typing that up makes me a little bit nauseous.

For Math, we are heavy into algebra right now. I know this can be grueling for parents and students alike, but I feel really good about how the kids did today, so hopefully the homework isn't too bad. I was happy to see so many students do so well for the Puzzler of the Week. I will have the drawing tomorrow...time got away from me today.