It's on overcast days like this, when the weather finally gives us a little break, that I love to curl up with a good book! This week I have been reading The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi. It is a Newberry honor book and has really kept my attention. So far I could easily see it being paired with our class read aloud Riding Freedom by Pam Munoz Ryan or the first in a trilogy that we will read later in the year called A Paradise Called Texas by Janice Jordan Shefflman. I can't decide yet, if it will be appropriate for all of our readers, but I'm giving it a shot.
I was really impressed this week by my readers though. Both of my classes are able to sustain reading for longer periods of time now. There are so many studies that correlate the time you spend reading to the strength of all other academics including test scores.
Our students wrapped up our first narratives for the year, but will immediately start a second unit on narrative so we can work on raising the quality of our writing. I am really enjoying our editing invitations. ALL students should know that every writer starts a sentence with a capital letter and ends with a punctuation mark and that writers include a subject and a predicate to form a complete sentence.
In social studies we will continue studying the regions of Texas for one final week, though we will break on Wednesday to celebrate Constitution Day!