We met at 1:00pm in Penny's class where the students were working with ACE. They were given weekly readers where they had already read the articles. They were to answer questions that the teacher had posted on the board as well as questions on the back of the reader. We were to wander around the classroom offering guidance to students when answering their questions using the ACE method.

 

3.3.08

We met at Penny's classroom at 12:40pm. I was a little late. When I came into the room, the students were were viewing a website about the Iditarod which is distance racing with sled dogs. http://www.iditarod.com This website was used as a selling point of one of the books the children would vote on to read and discuss in literature circles with us. The students did decide to go with the book about distance racing with sed dogs called Woodsong by Gary Paulson (who is also know for his book Hatchett.) Students recieved their books to put with their clipboards and writing journals. We would spend the rest of our classes starting at Tibbetts Middles school with the students.

 

3.10.08

Today we broke off into groups of 4 (small classroom). One group went to the library while we stayed in the classroom. We read the first chapter in the book then assigned roles to each student for our discussion. One student wrote down some vocabulary, another student did a drawing of their favorite scene. One was a discussion director and did a good job. We ran out of time before we could do journal writing.

 

3.17.08

I missed class today due to unforeseen circumstances. They read chapters 2 and 3.

 

3.24.08

~*~*~*~SPRING BREAK~*~*~*~

 

3.31.08

Today we read chapter 4. I wrote down some vocabulary I thought the students would be unfamiliar with. I was surprised at how many they actually knew. Mary lead the discussion for this session. We discussed the the chapter and what we liked about it. Several students enjoyed the lesson learned about not feeding wild animals. We found a common link within the sections of this chapter which happen to be fire.

 

Once done at Tibbetts Middle School, we met up and discussed the rest of our meetings with the students.

 

April 7: Read Chapters 5 and 6

             Nikki - Discussion questions

             Chelsea - Vocabulary

April 14: Read Chapter 7

               Chelsea - Discussion questions

               Mary - Vocabulary

April 21: Read Chapter 8 and start Race Days

                Nikki - Vocabulary

                Mary - Discussion questions

April 28: Finish Race Days

                Nikki - Discussion Questions

                Chelsea - Vocabulary

May 5: Book Discussion

 

4.7.08

Read chapter 5 and 6. I wrote down vocabulary but with the long chapters, we did not get finished with chapter 6 or have the time to discuss the reading. There are some students that are really good readers. They observe all punctuation and read with feeling. There is one student who is a decent reader. He reads like the story is a run on sentence. The other student struggles with her reading and stumbles on simple words.

 

Lesson plans:

April 14: Discuss chapters 5 and 6

               Read Chapter 7

               Write in journal

4.14.08

I missed class this day for an emergency appointment.

 

4.21.08

Students read with their teacher during the week so at this meeting, we started on Raceday 3 and read through Race day 12. I wrote down vocabulary but again we did not have time to discuss them. Students did however write in their journal something they liked from the reading today. When they were done, we got in a brief discussion about our reading.

 

Lesson plans:

April 28: Read Day 13 to the end of the book.

                Discuss reading and vocabulary

               Write in journal about favorite part.

 

4.28.08

Today we finished reading the book. We started off outside of the library but had some bug troubles so we moved back inside. We discussed the race days and what the students thought about it. We then discussed the whole book and the students' favorite parts of the book. Students then wrote in their journals about what they likes and how they thought the book was going to end.

 

Lesson plans:

May 5: Meet with the other literature circle at the beginning of class and discuss the book.

             Video tape students' knowledge of lit cirlces

             Students will draw a picture of their favorite scene of the book using colored pencils.

 

5.5.08