Santa's Breakfast is December 7th, 8:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. . Unfortunately, I will be out of town that weekend and will not be at the event. This is a PTO fundraiser. Each class is required to put together one “theme” basket to be raffled at the event. We need to come up with an idea for a basket and gather either donations for the basket or money to purchase items for the basket. IDEAS!!!

Maile and I will have a Thanksgiving party on Tuesday which is the day before thanksgiving break. For food, Maile and I will will bring a surprise treat. Please bring food that the pilgrim settlers would have had like fruits, veggies, nuts, squash, pumpkins, turkey, fish, and squirrel meat. Ha ha. Popcorn is oaky if you want to bring it, but we can have NO UNHEALTHY TREAT like cheetos, chips, and cookies.  Maile and I will pick out a Thanksgiving movie to watch, it will have to do with the settlers and there voyage on the Mayflower and indians.  We eat while we watch the movie.

Maile and I will also bring crafts. We will bring a turkey craft, a pilgrim craft, and an indian craft. All these crafts are optional just in case you don't want to do one of them. If you want to bring a craft, (it's optional,) then post what craft you want to bring. If you bring a craft you will have to bring all the supplies, (we can share supplies,) and enough for everyone in the class. We would like at least three people to bring crafts but it would be awesome if we had more people bring crafts. When we start making crafts, the crafts will be at a table and you get to choose which crafts you want do. 

Have fun and post what food your going to bring and or craft!

The student everyone thinks is the smartest may not have been born any different from anyone else.  But before they started school, they may have started to practice reading.  They had already started to build up their reading muscles.

This week we looked at using correct punctuation with dialogue.  Dialogue refers to what's said in a conversation, but how does one show that in writing? 
                   "We know!" you all exclaimed today.  "You use quotation marks!"  
                    "Yes, you are right!" I replied. "Let's talk about using correct punctuation with quotation                                   marks!"
                    "Yippee!" you all cried.  "We can't wait!"
                    "Well," I said, "let's get going then!"

The main job of quotation marks is to show or set off the exact spoken or written language that someone has used (a.k.a. the direct quote).  To use quotation marks correctly, we have to surround what the speaker has said with the quotation marks, including the end punctuation we imagine goes with it.* Remember that the end punctuation always goes inside the quotation marks because it is part of the quoted thought.  Once we have used quotation marks to show what a speaker has said, we can add information about who is doing the speaking.  The part of our writing that shows who is doing the speaking is NOT included in our quotation marks, because it is not part of what the speaker has said.  It DOES need a period after it, though, if it comes at the end of the sentence.  Look at these examples:


Direct quote:          "What book are you reading?"
Add speaker:         "What book are you reading?" asked Alagan. 

Direct quote:         "We're reading Blood on the River.  It's awesome!" 
Add speaker:         "We're reading Blood on the River.  It's awesome!" responded Hansumjen.

Direct quote:          "Huh!  That's your opinion!"
Add speaker:          "Huh!  That's your opinion!" snorted McMadmad.


*Here comes the twist! There is one more punctuation mark that makes an appearance in most dialogues, and that mark is the comma.  Remember that the comma is a separator...it separates things.  Commas are super flexible, very important punctuation marks, but, I will be honest, the comma can be tricky.  Watch the little stunt it pulls here:

Direct quote:           "Glenshire students trick-or-treat for UNICEF."
Add speaker:           "Glenshire students trick-or-treat for UNICEF," Mrs. Gauthier said proudly.


WHOA!  What is that comma doing AFTER the direct quote and INSIDE the quotation marks?  It kicked the period off the end of the direct quote and put itself in the period's place, and, crazily enough, that is what you have to do every time you add a speaker after a direct quote that ends in a period.  There is no such thing in grammar as "Glenshire students trick-or-treat for UNICEF." Mrs. Gauthier said proudly.  (If you have time, stop and ponder why a period gets replaced by a comma, but an exclamation point or question mark does not.)   And that's not all!  Now look at what happens when we add the speaker at the beginning:


Add speaker:           Mrs Gauthier said proudly, "Glenshire students trick-or-treat for UNICEF."


WHOA!  Now what is that comma doing BEFORE the direct quote and OUTSIDE the quotation marks? Well, it's separating!  It's separating the part of our sentence that is not quoted material from the direct quote. And that is the real function of commas in dialogue:  to separate the direct quote from the added information, whether that added information comes at the beginning, in the middle or at the end of our sentence.  Consider a few more examples:


"You eat rats?" Sparrowpelt asked.  "I'd rather go hungry!"
"So would I," Cherrytail agreed.  "Just thinking about rats makes me sick."
"Where I come from," Stick mewed drily, "you'll eat anything you can get."
Leafstar sympathized, "I guess when you're really hungry, you don't feel so picky."


Try writing your own sentence or two of dialogue using quotation marks and punctuation correctly.  Have fun!  This is where many new stories begin!

This week, we remembered that a subject and predicate are the necessary parts of a complete sentence.  Plain old subjects and predicates don't always tell our reader a whole lot, though.  We realized that the subject of the sentence tells us "who" is doing the action, and the predicate is the "action" itself, but our reader often wants to know "when", "where", "what", "how" and "why". We discovered that we can give the reader A LOT more information by addressing these questions.  This helps our reader recall, clarify, or visualize what we are telling them.  Do you recognize the "when", "where", "who", "action", "what" and "why" in the following sentence?  See if you can point them out!


The last time we met in the classroom, we crafted expanded sentences to give more details to our reader.

Try an expanded sentence yourself and write it in the comments section.  HELPFUL HINT:  start with "who" + "action" + "what" first, and always keep them together!  Next, you can add "what", why", "how", where" and/or "when"...the order is up to you!  Try a few combinations to see which one gets your meaning across the most clearly!  Which of these combinations do you think is the best?  It's really up to you!

EXAMPLE 1:  Expanding the sentence  "Trizak licked a lollipop."
On the last day of school, Trizak licked a lollipop loudly in the library.  Yuck!
In the library on the last day of school, Trizak licked a lollipop loudly.  Yuck! 
Trizak licked a lollipop loudly in the library on the last day of school.  Yuck!


EXAMPLE 2:  Expanding the sentence "Jasmighan detests spiders."
Jasmighan detests spiders in her shower early in the morning because they tickle her toes.  Yuck!
Because they tickle her toes in the shower early in the morning, Jasmighan detests spiders.  Yuck!
Early in the morning in the shower, Jasmighan detests spiders because they tickle her toes.  Yuck!