5-14-17 Using Social Studies Text Chapter 9 over the Civil War for our reading material this week in preparation for Civil War Presenters Friday morning.

Vocabulary from the chapter will serve as spelling and vocabulary for the week in reading.

5-5-17 Unit 5 Lesson 23: Vaqueros: America's First Cowboys  pp692-709. Comp test Friday, 5-12.

3-17-17 We will be back in the Journeys Book following spring break. Unit 4 Lesson 19  Darnell Block Reporting
Target Skill: Author's Purpose, Dialogue, Characterization
Target Strategy Summarizing. Comprehension test will be Friday, April 7th

3-13  This week we will be using Scholastic News for our reading material. These will be past issues we saved due to lack of extra time. We will practice Summarizing, Text Structure, Comprehension.  There are a few students that need to retake the Vocabulary Quiz and /or Spelling Test from the novel Fighting ground. There are 11 words they were to know the meaning and spelling of. The students got those papers back today to study for Thursday.

3-3-17    2-24-17 We will be reading The Fighting Ground by Avi to accompany our Social Studies coverage of the American Revolution coming up soon. There will be a reading response journal to complete as they read. 

Vocabulary (11 terms) will double as the spelling list. See the attachment below to quizlet. I am also providing a glossary of the terms with their response journal packet. We will spend two weeks on this book... Feb. 27th through March 10th. 

Spelling test will be March 9th over these 11 words. Be prepared to use them in sentences to also show knowledge of their meaning.

2-10-17 U4 L17 LAFFF Best Shorts and paired text "From Dreams to Reality" Target skills include: Story elements-Characters, Setting, Plot
Point of view, Literary devices such as onomatopoeia (words that sound like the real sound: (quack, slither, smack, etc); Predict 

Finishing Digital Citizenship comic strips from last week to share.

2-3-17 U4 L16 Lunch Money pp 480-494 and History of Comics pp 498-501. Target skill: Author's Purpose, Voice in writing, Visual Elements (illustrations and their affects on the readers)

1-19-17 Next week's story is U3 L14 James Forten. Target skill: Sequence, Main Idea and details, Summarize

1-4-17 This short week and next we will complete Blue Vocabulary Unit 7 and work on a Pick a Book Project. Students will pick a fictional novel of their choice to work with on several reading activities. They will receive a packet with instructions for various reading skill builders to use with their novel. They will also create a visual to use during their class presentation of the the book Thursday and Friday (1-12-17 and 1-13-17) of next week.

12-2-16 Dangerous Crossing- Historical Fiction
Cause/Effect relationships
Pronouns (Subject and Object)and Antecedents
Voice in writing- be clear in your position/opinion

11-27-16 Cougars...we began last week and will continue this week. 
Main idea and details
Word choice to be precise in meaning using synonyms
Writing Direct Quotations correctly; citing a source in research
Comp. Test Friday

11-14-16 Storm Warriors (U2 L9) Draw conclusions, infer/predict, generalizationsf and Running (U1 L3) which goes with the election this week.
10-21-16 Unit 2 Lesson 7 Old Yeller excerpt.
Target skill is Understanding Character, Author's word choice, Dialect, and visualizing

10-6-16 After Fall Break, we will return to the Journeys book and complete Unit 2 Lesson 6: Quest for the Tree Kangaroo. Comp.Test FRiday

9-16-16 Next two weeks we will be breaking away from the Journeys textbook to read a novel as a class. Beginning Monday, we will read Bridge to Terabithia. We will have a spelling test the second week of the novel on September 29th. A test over the novel will take place on Friday, September 30th. Studetnts will be allowed to use the book as a feference on this test.

There will be a reading log to complete along with comprehension questions along the way. 
9-9-16 We are skipping ahead to Unit 5 Lesson 22 The Birchbark House. This story accompanies the Social Studies topic we are testing over on Friday. 

Monday: Introduce vocabulary and do first reading of the story (p664-680
Blue Vocab p 16-25 will be due Wednesday of this week, with a short quiz over the word on Friday.
Journeys WB (JWB) 316-318 Spelling pages will be due Thursday with the test following

Tuesday: Leveled Readers with Critical Thinking Questions will again practice Theme (Message or Life Lesson the story teaches)

Wednesday: Comma and Semicolon usage review from Language/Grammar JWB p 322 assigned; Using Reference Materials to identify synonyms and antonyms; JWB 315 assigned

Thursday: Grade Spelling pages in JWB and take spelling test
Read Paired text Four Seasons of Food (p684-686); Review Theme and the use of visual elements such as illustrations to help tell a story and ensure understanding.


8-30-16 Unit 1 Lesson4 Double Dutch
Monday: Read Story; Discuss Target Skill Sequence
Blue Vocab pp 6-15 Due Wed. with quiz on Friday this week.
Splling pages JWB 40-42 due Thursday.
Tuesday: Leveled Readers to complete Sequence Flow Chart
Practice Sequencing Double Dutch important events
Wednesday: Suffixes -ion and -tion mini Lesson;JWB 39 Read Paired Text "Score!"
Thursday: Spelling pages 40-42 -grade and take test. Mini Lesson Proofreading and Writing using flashbacks and flashforwards. JWB 47-48
Friday Grade 39, 47, 48; Comprehension Test Double Dutch

8-19-16 Unit 1 Lesson 2 Royal Mystery
Target Skills: Theme, Elements of Drama, Characterization
Strategy: Questioning
JWB pages 13-24  (We will not always do all of these each week. I prefer to use activity based practice that is more engaging than tons of worksheets)

Writing:Narrative (Story with Voice)
Story Vocab and Comprehension tests will be Fridays. Students use their book for the comprehension portion with the understanding of being a problem solver to find the answers they don't know, not memorize a story they may never see again. As adults, we need to be able to find answers.

Comprehension and Story Vocabulary tests will be Friday each week. This is the meaning of the vocabulary introduced in the story for the week...NOT BLUE VOCAB.

Many of the Journeys WB pages are grammar related and will be used during our Language Arts time at the end of the day as well.

5-5-17 Unit 13 pp 130-139 Due Wednesday, May 17th; Quiz Friday, May 19th.

3-17-17 Blue Vocabulary Lesson 11 pp. 108-117 Due Wed April 12th. Quiz Friday April 14th.

3-13-17 Blue Vocab will continue after Spring Break

Review U 7-9  pp 96-97 Due Monday 3-6-17 Quiz to follow grading

2-3-17 Unit 9 pp 88-95 due Wed., Feb. 8th; Quiz: Friday Jan 10th

1-19-17 Blue Vocab U8 pp 78-87 due Wed Jan 25th; Quiz: Friday Jan 27th

1-4-17 Unit 7 pp 68-77 due Wednesday, Jan. 11th. Quiz Friday, Jan 13th.

11-7 Unit 4 pp 36-45 due Wednesday, November 16th; Quiz Friday, Nov. 18th

10-21-16 Blue Vocabulary Workshop Unit 3 pp 26-33 must be completed by Wednesday, October 26th. Quiz over 12 words is Friday, Oct. 28th.

9-16-16 We will take a break from Blue vocab over these two weeks that we study our novel. There will be vocabulary activities that go with the book instead.

9-2-16 Blue Voc Unit 2 (p16-25 will be due Wed., Sept 14th with the quiz on Friday, Sept. 16th

8-19-16 Unit 1 (pp 6-15- will be due Wednesday,August 31st. Test over these words- Friday, Sept. 2nd.

8-14-16 We will begin with Unit 1 and work through the pages together the first time to get familiar with directions and expectations. We usually spend 2 weeks on one unit. pages are graded Wed. of the second week, and the test is Friday following.

5-5-17  U5 L23 Unstressed Syllable  JWB pp 328-330 due Thursday, 5-11; Test Thursday

3-17-17 Lesson 19 Spelling JWB pp 256-258 Suffixes -ful, -ly, -ness, -less, -ment. JWB pages due Thursday; Test Thursday April 6th.

3-13-17 Some retake of Fighting Ground list

2-10-17 JWB 232-234 more suffixes -ed -ing due Thursday; Test Thursday, 2-16-17

2-3-17 JWB 220-222 suffixes -ed and -ing pages due Thursday; Test Thursday 2-9-17

1-19-17 L14 VV pattern JWB 196-198 due Thursday + test

1-4-17 Unit 26 words pp 363-365 in Journeys WB. Test Thursday, Jan. 12th.

11-27-16 Unit 2 Lesson 10 Cougars (schwa + /r/ sounds spelled -ar, -or, -er  JWB pages 112-114 due Thursday; Test Thursday, Dec. 1st

11-14-16 U2 L9 Compound Words

11-7 U1 L3  Long i and long o; JWB pages 28-30 due Thursday and test Thursday.

10-21-16 Unit 2 Lesson 7: more Vowel + r words. JWB pages 76-78 are due Thursday, October 27th with test to follow. I will be adding some editing/sentence writing assessment to these. Many students are still not beginning sentences with capital letters or ending with appropriate punctuation.

9-16-16 Spelling words will relate to our novel, Bridge to Terabithia, and will be Thursday, Sept. 29th.

9-9-16  Lesson 22 spelling pattern is -dge, -age, -ive, -ice endings. JWB pp 316-318 due Thursday Sept. 15th with test to follow

8-19-16 Lesson 2 spelling pattern is long A and long E words. Students took a pretest on Thursday, checked p 16 in Journeys WB to see which they already knew. They should have the test in their homework folder to keep at home to study.Tests and pretests are on Thursday each week.

Congratulations to Emily! She will be working on a challenge list since she already knew all the words! Way to go! When this happens, the students will get a challenge list instead. 


Journeys reading series has a spelling component. Most of the time we will study the words that accompany the weekly story. There are 3 Journeys Workbook (JWB) pages that practice spelling. These three will be graded Thursday before our test that day.