Working as Scribes

Today the sixth graders worked as scribes for the second graders.  A scribe copies a book that is already written. 

Grade two students had written their book by hand and needed a little help typing their work on the computers.  Our sixth graders were more than happy to assist their younger schoolmates in typing, spelling, capitalizing, punctuating, and proofreading.

We are looking forward to the finished product.   Imagine publishing a book in second grade!  Impressive.

Did you want to be an author when you were little? What did you want to be?

 

What’s the first book you remember reading?

The Writing Life

Do you know anyone who makes his or her living by writing?

Some people make their livings as bloggers.  Blogging is a type of writing gaining great popularity in the technologically driven modern world.

Other people make their livings as authors of books.   They could write fiction, non-fiction, poetry, or drama.

Others write educational materials to help teachers and students learn as much as possible about the world around them.

We are investigating all these types of writing in our classroom this month.

In addition to launching our student blogs, we are writing stories, poems, dramas, biographies, essays, and even recipes about topics we love and then including complementary activities for teachers to use in their classes every year.   This writing will be published in traditional, hard cover books.  Our deadline is the Ides of March. 

This week we divided ourselves into publishing houses.  Each house will research, author, edit, illustrate, and publish its own book. 

Here are some photos of us organizing our teams. After deciding on the subjects of our books, each author chose a topic, a genre, and an activity.   Our upcoming books include:

Hoop Legends: Look for essays, biographies, and stories featuring Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Dr. J, and Magic Johnson.
World Myths: You’ll find retellings of ancient myths from six of the seven continents.
Fabulous Food: Reach for this cookbook when you want a healthy recipe and an entertaining story about the dish.
Teddy Tours Ancient Greece: Teddy escapes his family again in the third book of the series Teddy Tours . This time the crazy canine cavorts around ancient artifacts in Athens.
Sports Around the World: Learn about the history, regulations, and athletes of netball, lacrosse, jai alai, motorcross, soccer, and baseball.

What do you think is the best part of being a professional writer?

What do you think is the most difficult part of being a professional writer?

Welcome, Grandparents!

Grandparents visited our classroom and toured the school to complete our celebration of Catholic Schools Week.    We shared our blog with them, especially our slide show of Buddy Day.  We also invited them to particpate with us in our first annual Family Blogging Month.  Our goals are to encourage excellent writing skills and to facilitate the learning connection between home and school.

Let the blogging commence!

Buddy Day

Grade 7 and their kindergarten buddies made cards for our soldiers on Buddy Day of Catholic Schools Week. Using the website Anysolider.com, we found an address for a group of 54 soldiers serving in Afganistan. Together we sent prayers and gratitude around the world to our service men and women.

We also had some time to play together and make snacks of fifty items, 10 pieces of 5 different items (pretzels, marshmallows, etc.) We had a fun day! Thank you to Mrs. Stuart and Mrs. Guarino for organizing our visit. We hope to get together again.

What are some ways you show appreciation to others?

Buddy Day on PhotoPeach