Tuesday, December 3, 2013 Waxing Crescent Who found out the moon phase? 8:10 – 8:30

Colonial Times! 8:30 – 9:15 In 1763, the English colonies numbered 13. They were Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

Original 13 Colonies!

What would your clothes look like during the colonial times?

Paired Partners Colonial Clothing Handout

Restroom Break 9:15 – 9:25

How would you prepare your food during the colonial times?

Paired Partners Colonial Kitchen Handout 9:25 – 10:00

10: :45 INDEPENDENT READING

Word Study Week 14 10:45 – 10:55

Word Study Director Vigor Conductor Superior Splendor Peculiar

Director

Vigor

Conductor

Superior

splendor

Peculiar

Being a Writer 10:55 – 11:30

Agenda This week you are going to learn about a professional author’s writing process, review the fiction drafts you have written, and pick one draft to take through the writing process all the way to publication.

Chris Van Allsburg You have heard three stories by Chris Van Allsburg. Based on these stories, what kind of person do you think Chris Van Allsburg might be? Why?

Getting to know Chris Van Allsburg I am going to read an excerpt from Chris Van Allsburg’s website. Listening carefully to this will help you get a better understanding of how professional author’s take their writing to publication.

Where do you get your ideas? “The ideas for my books come to me in different ways. For instance, I once was standing in my kitchen one morning, and saw two ants on the counter top. I believed the ants came from my backyard, and began to wonder what a trip from the back yard to my kitchen would be like for an ant. That started me thinking about a story of two ants and their unusual journey into a house. The story became, Two Bad Ants… Ideas for stories are all around.”

What does it take to write and illustrate a book? “It takes me between 7 and 9 months to write the story and make the pictures that become a book. The picture making part takes much longer than the writing part. In almost every case, the original pictures I make are much larger than they appear in the finished books.”

How do you make your pictures look so real? “The kind of stories I write are mostly fantasies. When a story is about strange and incredible events, I think it’s important that the pictures convince the reader that the events described actually could happen. That is why I try to make my pictures look real. I do this by using real people as models of the characters in my books and by…(making) the places shown in the pictures appear as if they really exist.”

Why do you put that little white dog in all of your books? Do you have a little white dog? “The first story that I wrote, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, had a dog in it named Fritz. When I thought about the kind of dog I wanted Fritz to be, I decided he should be a bull terrier. Unfortunately, I didn’t know any bull terriers that could be my model for drawing pictures. I found some photographs, but they were not what I needed. What I needed was a real dog…Not long after that, (my brother-in-law) acquired a bull terrier puppy, and named him Winston. Winston became the model for Fritz, and because he was my brother-in-law’s dog, I thought of Winston as a kind of nephew. Sadly, Winston had an accident that sent him to the big dog kennel in the sky at a young age. I decided to commemorate the contribution he made to my first book by including him (or at least a tiny part of him) in all of my books.”

In his Caldecott Medal acceptance speech, Chris Van Allsburg says: An award does not change the quality of a book. I’m acutely aware of the deficiencies in all of my work. I sometimes think I’d like to do over everything I’ve ever done and get it right. But I know that a few years later I’d want to do everything over a third time. This award carries with it a kind of wisdom for someone like me. It suggests that the success of art is not dependent on its nearness to perfection but its power to communicate. Things can be right without being perfect.

Writing Time! Choose your piece of fiction writing that you want to take to publication. Think of the illustrations that you want to create to include in your final piece. Begin to create a rough draft for your final publication.

11:30 – 12:00 SCIENCE TIME

Science Workbook Review Chapter 3 Test

Paired Partners Handout – The Practices of Science

Out of Classroom! 12:00 – 12:45 Activity 12:45 – 1:15 Lunch 1:15 – 1:45 Recess

Math Time! 1:45 –3:10

Math Workbook pages

Homework Math –finish workbook pages Review Science Binder Read at least 30 minutes every day; Voc. HW Choice – Tuesday

3:10 – 3:15Wrap Up! Pack-Up Office will announce: Car Riders – Leave around 3:15 Bus Riders – Teacher walks out about 3:22 (listen to intercom-dismisses by grade)