Week 11
Lesson Plan:
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Week 12
Lesson Plan:
Read aloud a biography. Encourage students to research a person and write the biography. Review text features of a nonfiction book. Review some basic grammar rules that are not being practiced while students write.
What happened:

On Monday, sixteen research monsters arrived in my room after school ready to work. My third graders that signed up for Monday finally had an opportunity to attend a meeting since school started in 2018. I read aloud the first part of a biography about Martin Luther King, Jr. Then, we researched. I started my new third graders on the yellow level. Within the meeting time, a couple of them moved onto the green level. I start new students at the yellow level because it is gives me a good assessment of the command of their writing and grammar skills.
Many of my fourth graders that I had not seen since play practice started on Thursdays finished their reports on holidays and other various topics. There were quite a few students in my room, so my table was busy with students coming and going with questions about their topic and research skills. All students worked very hard and seemed to enjoy this time after school reading, writing, and researching. I received several completed reports about Hanukah, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and many yellow level reports from my third graders that are learning how to research with the Leveled Research Library.

On Thursday, I had eleven research monsters in attendance. Four of them were fourth graders and eight were third graders. I had one new third grader sign-up that day and arrived ready to research. I read the second half of the book about Martin Luther King, Jr. Students began researching their chosen topic, while I introduced my new monster to the Leveled Research Library and the yellow level. One fourth grader began to research the planet Mars with a couple of books from the school library and Epic! on the iPad. Another third grader moved on to research at the green level as well as a couple of my fourth graders.

Most of my third graders are researching at the yellow level to strengthen their writing and automaticity of their sentence structure. Some are learning how to write with pronouns, and others are working on writing in paragraph form. We also created a “Monster Checks” list that I placed under the ELMO so all students would remember to check their work to lessen the teacher support. At the end of the meeting, I received several yellows level reports.