As we kick off our new writing unit, Fantasy Fiction, we’ve also begun reading a great fantasy novel, Found, by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Today we were speaking about how useful it is, when discussing a new genre, to have common references. I suggested that it would be great if students had an opportunity to watch several popular fantasy-genre films, so we could have their characters and plots as common talking points. I suggested three films:

1. The Princess Bride
2. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (aka Philosopher’s Stone)
3. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The trailers of all three films are included below. While it is not required that students watch the films, it would contribute significantly to our conversations throughout this unit. All three are sufficiently popular that they should be widely available (several students claimed to own all three!) through friends and various online services.

Since the beginning of the year 5R have been inquiring into personal narrative writing. Yesterday, we celebrated the publication of our first stories with a publication party! We shared our writing over glasses of bubbly grape juice and toasted our progress as writers.

Today, your child has brought home a “publication package” containing a copy of the story they shared during our Writer’s Celebration, their original idea seeds, various early drafts and revisions, experiments with leads and endings, and a range of assessment documents.

I have asked the students to sit down with family members and share the process they went through to take their story from “seed story” to publication.  They have put a lot of work into these stories, and their work is worth celebrating.

Attached to the story, you’ll find one checklist completed by your child.  You will also find a checklist completed by me.  Please note that there are some points on the checklist that we did not cover in our mini-lessons during this unit.  These are:

• The use of transitional phrases.
• Some conventions of paragraphing, such as for dialogue.
• I varied my sentences to create the pace and tone of my narrative.
• I used commas to set off introductory parts of sentences; I also used commas to show talking directly to someone.

I scored these parts anyway to reflect your child’s current use of these techniques, but we did not spend time going over them during class.

I have also sent a laminated sheet of information for parents about Writing Workshop.  At the bottom of this page, there’s a section about how to talk to your child about writing.  I hope you will find these prompts helpful as you chat with your child.

Please enjoy sharing this writing with your child and help them to return the entire package, in its envelope by next Monday, November 21.

This morning we were chatting in 5R about how to make connections with our buddy class, Ms McCaughan’s second graders, and to celebrate our first five weeks together. One suggestion that got a lot of enthusiasm, was having a sausage campfire lunch!

Having discussed the idea with Ms McCaughan, here’s the plan…

This Thursday, September 22, we will not be having our normal lunch routine. At 11:30 we will meet our buddy class for the first time, and head out into the woods behind the school to a campfire site together. We will build a fire, cook our sausage lunch, share some desserts and other foods, and enjoy a couple hours in the woods together. We will return to class for 1:30.

Here’s what we need from you…

FOOD

1. If your child gets pre-paid hot lunch from the cafeteria every day, the ZIS cafeteria staff have agreed to pack a few sausages and some bread rolls for them instead of the usual menu.
2. Otherwise, please send a couple sausages from home (a good idea if your child has particular dietary requirements, they can be veggie, kosher etc.), they can be refrigerated from Thursday morning at school. Please send only as much as your child will eat.

If there is a problem with this please let me know as soon as possible and we will problem-solve together.

Additional foods, like marshmallows, other desserts, easy vegetables (like baby tomatoes, vegetable sticks etc.), bread rolls, potato chips, mustard, ketchup etc., as well as paper plates and utensils, would be welcome in small amounts, to share. The students suggested a sign-up sheet for this. There is no requirement that anyone bring additional foods, I’m sure we will have enough. If you would like, you can sign up here.

One last food note… Please don’t send anything other than sausages/hot dogs to cook over the fire. We won’t be able to do steak or chicken legs this time! 🙂

WEATHER

At the moment the weather looks good for Thursday. This may change however. If on Wednesday evening the forecast looks really wet for Thursday, we will cancel for this week and reschedule for an upcoming week. Please keep a look out for a blog post on Wednesday evening if we are cancelling. If we are not cancelling, there will be no update.

Of course, we will be in the woods for a few hours. Please ensure your child has appropriate clothing for this. Mosquito repellant may be smart, and clothes/shoes that can get dirty would be good.

As always, please ensure your child has a water bottle with them to take into the woods. A good-sized snack is a good idea as well.

KEY POINTS in this post:

• Plan for your child’s food for Thursday (either cafeteria if that is their norm, or packed sausages)
• Sign up for additional contributions if desired
• Keep an eye out for a possible rain cancellation post on Wednesday evening
• Water bottle and a snack on Friday

Thanks for your support! It’s going to be a great celebration!

Next week your child will begin collecting and developing writing ideas in a notebook in Writer’s Workshop. During writing workshop we will explore many different genres of writing and study the craft of well-known authors to improve our own writing skills. All students have been given their own writer’s notebook, but I would like your child to personalize his or her notebook to generate a greater sense of ownership. This notebook will be the place where creative ideas, personal feelings, and new characters will be created and developed throughout the year. You won’t believe the growth your child will make this year as a writer! It will be fun for you to browse through your child’s notebook as the year goes on to observe the constant progress.

The idea is that we design our notebooks to be an inspiration of stories for us. To best serve this purpose, we can decorate them with images of meaningful people, places and moments of our lives. Please begin to collect meaningful and inspiring items such as:

Photos (They will be cut and pasted on the notebook, so you may want to make copies of the photos)

Souvenirs (tickets from special events, pictures from brochures, etc.)

Magazine Pictures (Students can cut out fun pictures from magazines of animals, favorite foods, favorite celebrities, meaningful words, etc.)

Quotes (inspiring words about writing or other topics)

Scrapbook Materials (stickers, decorative paper, stamps, etc.)

Be Creative! (Bring anything else that you can think of!)

Please remind your child to choose the materials he or she will use to decorate the writer’s notebook and bring the materials to school in an envelope or folder by Friday, August 26.

See the presentation below for some ideas!