Well, back to work today.
Today the students were introduced to the spelling activity - word sorting and a word knowledge activity called jargon cards.
The word sorts should be familiar - all students have been sorted into groupings based on an assessment from last week. Today they received their lists for the week. It focuses on a particular word pattern with which the students had difficulty. They do various sorting activities through the week and I am aiming to have an assessment on Fridays.
The jargon cards are designed to introduce students to harder words the students may have heard before, but are not too familiar with them. They are "Tier Two" words and they are designed to enrich the students vocabulary. Tier two consists of high frequency words that occur across a variety of domains. That is, these words occur often in mature language situations such as adult conversations and literature, and therefore strongly influence speaking and reading. The activity from today works on understanding the meaning. We generated a definition together, talked about the part of speech and then the students had to make a connection to the word in their own lives (they do not have to use it in a sentence) and draw a picture that associates with the meaning.
That's it for the edubabble for now and I also want to remind you about the soccer practices this week as well as the Harrier (cross-country).
