Thursday, May 12, 2005

Hanging In

Today was the last day of the California Standards Test. Tomorrow we start the CAT 6 portion. By Monday, deity of your choice willing, will be done. It's hard for them to keep the energy up. But they're really trying. I can tell that.

We checked yesterday's work first thing, and we read and discussed the "Heartland" poem. We talked about what the "heartland" is and why people call it that. We also scanned several lines of the poem so that students could learn what couplets are and about iambic. (The poem is written in irregular stanzas of iambic quadrameter). After recess, we also had Reader's Workshop and Writer's Workshop.

In the afternoon we finished up Minnie and Moo, a rather odd book about a ragtag group of animals who try to save the farm. We reviewed "Ox-Cart Man" and students were assigned lines of the poem to illustrate as a first step towards the culminating project. One of the works is shown above.

Homework: No homework is the only really good part of testing week, isn't it?

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