Writing:

1. Weekly Blog and email. The blog is a review of the week and about events in the week. Students email me the blog entry before it is uploaded to the blog. ( www.gaggle.net ).
2. The Mysteries Of The Harris Burdick - picture book by Chris Van Allsburg inspired stories.
3. I Like Bugs Poem.
4. New Fruit Advertisement. Invent a new fruit. Name it and produce a 30 second advertisement for it with jingle.
5. Interviews about various occupations and roles in the community.
6. Nonsense Poems from The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll.
7. Myths.
8. Picture Book. Students create their own picture book by writing a story and making illustrations, making a cover and binding the book. Many picture books will re read to provide ideas and models for the students to make their own.

There is also a weekly handwriting practice activity.

Spelling:

Individuals will complete a spelling contract every week in class according to their language ability from the book, Practise Your Spelling Skills, and one each week for homework from the book, Spelling Skills & Strategies. These both focus on word families and letter combinations in spelling and will vary according to level.

20 LSCWCh words are learnt per week. Children will LSCWCh them each day at school and each night for homework. They also complete some activities using them in class each day to help learn them.   Children are tested on them on Friday. Any words they do not know in the test they receive again until they do know them. These words come from the writing they do. If there are not twenty words from their writing they will use list words that will come from a variety of sources at the child's level.

Reading:

Children will be read to regularly and these books will be the basis for discussions and activities.Silent reading 15 minutes every day. Children read from a library selection in class, which is recorded in on a reading log to show how many pages read each day. They will also read for homework each night.Teacher conferences children during a daily silent reading period. At this time students will read aloud, answer questions about the book being read and observations will be made about the child's reading to develop individual teaching strategies. Comprehension activities from a variety of sources. Cloze activities to develop reading for meaning skills and strategies to make sense of what is read. SRA Reading Lab. Students work on cards at their level to develop comprehension skills. Shared novel: Boy Overboard by Morris Gleitzman. Read the book and do follow-up activities for each section.

Grammar:

Students will work from grade appropriate English text - Houghton & Mifflin English to examine grammar and mechanics concepts:

Grade 3:

1. More About Quotation Marks
2. Subject Pronouns
3. Pronouns & Verbs
4. Object Pronouns
5. Using I & Me
6. Possessive Pronouns
7. Contractions
8. Using there, their, and they're

Grade 4:

1. Titles
2. What Is A Pronoun?
3. Subject Pronouns
4. Object Pronouns
5. Using I & Me
6. Possessive Pronouns
7. Contractions With Pronouns
8. Pronouns & Homophones