Hello, Teacher & Writer Friends,
Since I was a few days late
posting the lesson last month, this month I'll be a few days early.
Actually, Dena and I celebrate our 8th anniversary on August 1st, and
we'll be driving home that day from two-day sneak-away, so I have to
post now; it'll be the first time we leave puppy Tucker in the hands of
our house-sitter, and Dena is nervous about her "baby."
My wife and I have spent the past month working on our two new classroom products. My project--10 Common Core-Friendly Vocabulary Lessons--is
showing strong interest and sales, which is nice, and two of the
package's ten vocabulary/writing lessons are posted for anyone to
peruse, in case you want to determine if this new product will work for
you or not; click this link to preview the two PowerPoints and read
about ordering the product. Dena's project--Reader's Notebook Bingo Cards--has
been drafted; we are revising the online instructions that come with
each of the 25 writing-about-reading prompts and challenges, and we are
fancy-ing up the layout of the Bingo Cards themselves. Dena's new
project should be ready for pre-sale in the next two weeks.
Here are this month's writing lesson and writer's notebook prompt:
- August's Lesson: Finding Unique Antonyms & Fixing Mr. Dickens' Comma Splices So each of our new 10 Common Core-Friendly Vocabulary Lessons comes with not only a PowerPoint lesson that's pretty easy to follow and teach from, but also each lesson comes with direct access to a complementary on-line lesson that can be used right before showing the PowerPoint lesson or right after. One of the vocabulary lessons is on antonyms and synonyms, for example, and there is an online writing lesson that focuses on the same topic. This month's writing lesson is the lesson that can accompany the PowerPoint Vocabulary Lesson on antonyms and synonyms.
- August's Notebook Prompt: The Acropolis of Acronym Tasks Early on, I believe you need to set up the notion that a writer's notebook's pages can become collections of things: words, phrases, titles, jokes, puns, quotations, etc. I like my students to learn how English words were formed, and we do writing tasks when we learn a new etymology technique. Acronyms (and initialisms) are interesting words to be aware of, and they are fun to poke fun at, as this writer's notebook page task attempts to do. This prompt has students play three games with acronyms--each game is designed to tap into a different part of the thinker's brain.
We report back to school on
the 7th here in Northern Nevada, and we have the kids back on the 12th.
If you're in a similar boat, I hope your transition back is a smooth
one. If you still have most of the month to play, then play!
--Corbett & Dena Harrison
Visit Writing Lesson of the Month Network at: http://writinglesson.ning.com/
