In our very first class together we discussed the importance of good manners in our daily school and home routine.  We covered in-classroom manners with teachers and classmates, lunchroom etiquette and at-home manners, with specific focus on calling a family member to the phone properly.  We did a rap song and a tune about the importance of these skills which can always be tied to the Golden Rule.  Please be sure to ask your children about the topics we demonstrated through our role-playing activities.

In our first three classes together, we focused on heading up our paper for Language Arts class and how to skip spaces between answers.  We then worked on answering questions completely, using statement starters so it is easy to tell what the questions was, i.e. Who was the cleverest character in Fantastic Mr. Fox, the fox or the farmer and why?   Answer:  The fox was the cleverest character in Fantastic Mr. Fox because……….. 

We worked on comprehension question answers to the two required summer reading books, “Muggie Maggie” and “Fantastic Mr. Fox.”  Students were offered some choice within a list of questions to complete.   The questions were written at various levels. 

On a more basic level, we want to assure that proper punctuation and complete sentences are always used. We will also stress neatness and thorough erasing, when needed.  I try to help the students think about clever ways to “repair” any editing so they are not frustrated by doing so much erasing.  They seem to respond well to this approach.

Many of the students did a very nice job in following these instructions as I walked around and helped them edit.  We will keep these papers as a baseline assessment which helped me to learn more about each student and their capabilities at this point in time.