Inquiry in Writing

The following video captured part of the writing process in KZE.  Students looked at books written by professional authors, shared what they noticed in these books, created noticing chart, had mini lesson focus on specific point of noticing, and try it out in their own writing.  After trying, they go back to mentor texts and noticed more things. They decided to try again. They learned a lot from others on using illustration in their writings to express ideas and thinking.

 

https://animoto.com/play/8LhNhqqQquK8RAv9VBtO0g

 

 

 

 

Writing – Family Stories

KZE students continue their inquiry process in writing. We focus on family story writing this past week. We read mentor texts “Arthur’s Family Vacation” by Marc Brown, “The Trip Back Home” by Janet Wong, and “Pictures from Our Vacation” by Lynne Perkins. We shared what we noticed in these books, created a noticing chart, and chose four things we noticed to try it out in our own writing. One of our notice was “authors tell what happened in order.” But we didn’t know how. So we had a close study session by going back to the mentor texts. We found out that writers use sequential words (words that tell us when and tell what happened in order). We added all the useful sequential words in our noticing chart to remind us to include them in our writing as well. We are working very hard as writers and can’t wait to share our family stories soon.

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Inquiry in writing…

KZE students showed their baby photos, shared changes they had observed. We were wondering how to show changes – write our own personal timeline. But how??? After discussion, we decided to look at books written by professional authors. We read mentor texts “When I was Little” by Jamie Curtis and Marcia Williams, “Before You Were Big” by Jennifer Davis, and “When I Was Five” by Arthur Howard. We shared what we noticed in these books, and chose three things we noticed to try it out in our personal timeline writing. After trying, we went back to mentor texts and noticed more things. We decided to try them out again. We learned a lot from other authors on writing personal timeline.

Reading books and trying to notice helped me to write my personal timeline. – Lisa
I like sharing ideas about what we should do because it helped us to find answers on how to write person timeline. – Trace
When we put ideas on our chart, it helped me to remember what to write on my personal timeline. – Emerson
Sharing what we notice helped me to write personal timeline. – Liam
I think the chart helped me to write personal timeline. – Lizzy
I think the noticing chart helped me to write personal timeline better. – Scarlett
I like to share ideas on how to write my personal timeline. – Kyle
When people came up with ideas, I think about my ideas, and those ideas helped me to write my personal timeline. – Freddie

https://animoto.com/play/gnrxbGe5GD06lP1Wa2DbQw

For the week of December 1 to December 5…

Unit of Inquiry:

For the past six weeks, KZE students had many opportunities to inquire into how communities provide services designed to meet people’s needs.   As we wrap up the “Community” unit this week, students reflected on what they had learned on the topic.  Here are some of the highlights:

  • People need a community to live in so that they can have different services nearby. – Max
  • People need food.  If they don’t have food, they will die. – Fatima
  • We need jacket because when it is cold outside, the jacket will keep us warm. – Freddie
  • We need water to drink so that we won’t die. – Safiya
  • We need trees so we can breath. – Charlie
  • We need different services in our community.  – Hannes
  • We learned that we need to plan when we built our model community. – Daisy
  • We learned that we should work as a team when we made our model community. – Emerson

Sharing our published “True Stories”
For the past two weeks, KZE students practiced writing “true stories”. They tried to think of something that happened or that they did. Next, they told whatkaymbu-image-20141204-1214 happened with pictures and words. We reminded ourselves that we should always try to tell WHO is in the story, WHERE the story takes place, and WHAT is happening.  We practiced telling the story in a storyteller’s voice and used speech bubbles to remember what people said. They were very proud to share their published books with their reading buddies. GO KZE writers!

 

Math – 3D shapes

kaymbu-image-20141204-1215During math, we reviewed some basic two dimensional shapes before introducing basic three dimensional shapes including cone, cuboid, pyramid, cylinder, cube, and sphere. We will continue to reinforce the following in the coming weeks: correctly name shapes regardless to their orientations or overall size, Identify shapes as 2D (flat) or 3D (solid), building shapes, compare 2D and 3D shapes and describe their similarities/differences as well as other attributes.

 

Measurement and “Who We Are”…

measurementWhat did we learn about measurement…

  •  We measured people and we measured other objects.
  • Objects and people can be different sizes.
  • We always have to check twice after we measured.
  • We always need to measure from one end to the other end.
  • We always need to count slowly when you finished.
  • Take your time to measure.
  • The things that you are measuring with has to be the same.
  • We can use objects like crayons, cubes, links, plastic foots, paper, books, markers, erasers etc. to measure other larger objects.
  • We can use everything to measure.
  • WE HAVE FUN MEASRUING STUFFS…

Unit of Inquiry – Who We Are

Students finished sharing their “About Me” box.  Thank you for helping them with this project.  They did a great job sharing and showing who they are and how they are unique.  kaymbu-image-20140925-1117We discussed in depth about what feelings we have and how to express them.  Students applied their writing skills to create their “My Feelings” Book.  This process increases their awareness of their emotions.  It laid a good foundation for helping students find appropriate ways to express themselves.

 

We are Writers…

We are writersDuring Writer’s Workshop, we learned that writers sometimes close their eyes to picture an idea that they want to write about, and this helps them to include more details in their pictures and through their words. We also practiced saying words slowly and writing down the sounds that we hear. Students tried very hard to apply these skills when they wrote their “I Like” book.