Fall round-up

Well, it has been an exciting fall!  Here is a roundup of our experiences thus far!

Writing:
   We continue to focus on topic sentences.  Students have come a long way in their ability to write a quality topic sentence!
     We have spent the last two weeks working on writing a descriptive paragraph of our home.  Through this 10 day process we have learned how to generate ideas, put those ideas into paragraph form, create voice and narrative to our writing as well as engaging in the editing/peer editing process.

Literature:
  This has been an exciting week in Literature.  This week we finished our reading of Hamlet!  Student response to a Shakespearean Tragedy was amazing.  The students could hardly contain themselves as we worked our way through the last eight pages of the book.  There were lots of, "I knew it!" and "NO, I can't believe that happened."  It is amazing to see young readers get so excited about Shakespeare!
  If you have the time I strongly recommend you have your child tell you all about the play!

Grammar:
  In grammar our focus this week was pronouns.  Student's did a wonderful job with this and we will be moving on to prepositions after MEA.

  Finally, for the next 8 weeks I will be taking a professional sabbatical.  I will greatly miss all the students.  Natalie Rancone will be my substitute.  She is a wonderful literature teacher and I am confident the students will have a great time with her!  Please make sure you give her a big Cologne Academy welcome!

  See you all in December!

   Mrs. Gordon

Welcome Back!

We are starting off the year with a BANG!  Here are a few things we are working on in MUR:

Writing:
     In writing we are working on "flow".  This is a writing procedure that teaches us that ideas need to flow from one sentence to the next.  We have been putting this skill to good use by writing paragraphs about how to do something.
    Students are also partaking in peer editing and having their work read to them.  I have seen tremendous progress in everyone's writing over the past week.

    Advanced MUR students have been working on writing a "quality" topic sentence and both groups are stretching their vocabulary by including multi syllabic words in their writing.

Hamlet:
   We are off to a great start with Hamlet.  We have learned about Shakespeare's life, the Globe Theater as well as literary and structural elements of a Tragedy.
  
Spelling:
   We continue our study of root words in spelling.  This week students are working with the root manu.

Summer Fun!

Well, it has been a very exciting summer!  I kicked off the summer with a trip to Disney World.  Yes kiddos...that is Mrs. Gordon with a storm trooper!  The summer continued with trips to the beach and Michigan.  Don't worry I also had lots of time to create fun and exciting lessons for MUR!

It's going to be an awesome year. Hold on to your books and notebooks...off we go!