Bugs and Ads

Since we we have been reading part of A Cricket in Times Square as part of the Treasures program, I gave the students a writing prompt inspired by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. I left out the slightly gross detail that the hero of the story becomes a cockroach, and just told them that they had been changed into an insect. Some of the responses, like this one, were quite funny.

Today I was sitting on the couch writing in my diary. Now I love insects, even the poisonous one that was sitting next to me on the couch. The little red ant crawled on to me and then started crawling all over me. It tickled! And then, ouch! It bit me. 

Next thing I knew I was also a tiny, red ant. I was quite happy to be an ant. Everything was so big. I started to follow the ant that poisoned me. He went through an electrical outlet. I tried to warn him, but he went through it anyhow. Now there was a mini fire in my house! At that moment my mom came and started to scream. She tried to stomp on the electrical outlet. But her shoe caught fire. So she took it off and through it over the balcony. It handed on a pine tree. The tree caught and fire and it started to spread.  My mom walked over to the desk and picked up the phone. I couldn’t hear what she was saying because it was too much for my little ears.

I crawled out to the patio and looked out. There were five moving things that looked like yellow Darth Vaders. After a minute or so, the fire was out. I realized that my mother would be worried about me. I started drawing to her to tell her that I was an ant. I wondered if she would hear me in English. Just then the door feel down and the Darth Vader people They walked towards my mother and said ….

The Treasures series also introduces the idea of advertising techniques in this week. We discussed “loaded language,” “bandwagon,” “testimonials,” and “warnings” as ways that advertisers help convince us to buy things. The students were give the opportunity to create advertisements using some of these techniques. 

In the afternoon I previewed tomorrow’s field trip to the Leonis Adobe in Calabasas with both our class and room 18. Remember to have students pack a simple lunch tomorrow! There will be no place to buy food. 

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 11-15 ten times each in cursive. Write a sentence for each word. (2) Do the spelling crossword. (3) Do "Pronouns and Antecedents,” Pratice Book pages 201-202. (4) Do Fractions to Decimals 3. (5) Do “Estimating Decimals,“ pages 296-297 in the math book. 

Students who did not finish eh advertisement during class should be sure to finish at home tonight.