Last week, I introduced my class to The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush by Tomie dePaola.  I used a unit from Reagan over at Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits.  We explored this complex text as we pulled it apart and discussed main character, setting, and opinion.

The children were given a project grade on this. At our school, we were asked to come up with a grading policy across each grade level.  Our first grade team decided our reading grade would consist of 25% tests, 25% high frequency words/fluency, 25% projects and 25% assignments.

We loved that this unit came with a rubric.  You can check out The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush in Reagan's TpT store by clicking on the picture below.


As we wrapped up the story last week, the students were asked to retell the story.  They were asked to include an introduction, beginning, middle, end and a conclusion.  We worked together to organize their thoughts in a FLEE map!  There will be more to come on this, but here is a snapshot of a student work sample. A FLEE map is a combination of a flow map and a tree map.  This was our first attempt at is and at took lots of modeling, directions and re-directions, but we made it!


The students then had to use the FLEE map as a guide to write their retelling of The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush.  A writing grade was taken on this.  Our language arts grades now consist of 25% spelling, 25% sentence dictation, 25% grammar and 25% writing.
 
I would love to hear your thought on grading.  Do you give numerical grades, letter grades or more general grades such as S's and N's?

The end of September leading into October is the perfect time to explore graphing!  It is included in our Common Core standards, but not in our Go Math! book.  Go Math has stepped up to the plate and has online resources now for those interested.

Graphing is such a fun, interactive math concept that I try really hard NOT to use unrelated worksheets.  At the end of September we had an apple taste test.  The students were then able to paint their favorite apple.  They had definite opinions about apples by the time we were ready to graph!




The kiddos took the reigns on this activity and helped create our graph from the apples to the title to the labels and the numbers.  THIS MADE A REAL CONNECTION to graphing!

On Tuesday, each friend will receive a package of  Bones Halloween Candy.  We ordered them HERE from Oriental Trading as they are hard to find in regular stores now. 


We will be reading Dem Bones before we start the activity. Dem Bones is a super cute book by Bob Barner with a catchy tune. You can find it on Amazon HERE.


You can find an amazing Halloween Themed Math Centers with a Dem Bones graph, sorting mat and questions over at TpT with Erica Bohrer.