Friday February 28

We started with our Thank You Friday circle. We had almost every student be thankful for something or someone this week. We are emphasizing kindness in any way, big or small so it is hopefully easier to catch someone being kind or doing some act of kindness. After this we started a writing activity that will help everyone write more descriptively. The saying, Show don't Tell, is the main idea of writing descriptively. We started with a very simple boring sentence called a skeleton sentence because it is very basic and bare bones. From this we added details that described the five W's. Who, What, Where, When and Why. As a class we worked on a skeleton sentence and brainstormed these details. These were just ideas, and didn't have to be used when writing the actual paragraph. See our example to get an idea of what expanding a boring sentence is like. 

Skeleton Sentence: Sam went upstairs.

Who: nine years old, short for his age, red hair, oldest child in his family

What happened: brushed his teeth in the bathroom to get ready for bed, he tripped while running up the stairs

Where: in his family’s house to get to the bathroom upstairs

Why: to brush his teeth and go to bed because he was exhausted

When: it was extremely late at night

New detailed paragraph:

“Eeeeyyyaaawww”, nine year old Sam gave a gigantic stretch while watching his favourite movie on his comfy couch. He glanced at the clock hanging on the wall and jumped off the couch because he realized it was extremely late, and his parents were going to be home any minute. Freaking out, Sam ran as fast as a cheetah up the stairs stumbling over his feet to get to the bathroom so he could brush his teeth. Sam rushed to his room and jumped into his PJs. He flopped into his soft fluffy bed and felt his heart rate slow down just as he heard the front door open. Suddenly he realized that he forgot to turn off the TV downstairs.

 We also talked about beginning our paragraph in an interesting way that would capture the reader's attention. Using a sound or action were the most effective, but asking a question or having a speaking part could also grab attention. We worked on this for the rest of the morning as students were chose a skeleton sentence to expand using this format. There was a fire drill at 11am, with the fire department here to observe. 

 Reminders:
- next week is our Evergreen Theatre week, so we will be working with these actors to create a performance to share with everyone on Friday of next week
- there are still a few students who need to return their field trip forms before they can be permitted to go 

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