The IMA Kids Are Blogging!!!!

The IMA kids started using their blogs today!!!!!

Please follow this link to kidblog.org to see our work here:  The IMA Kids Blog

This site is password protected and can only be accessed by IMA kids.  Each child has his or her own password.  Please ask your child to keep his/her password private and to only share it with family members. The kids should not share this password with other friends. 

Enjoy reading the posts!

The Excitement Continues!

Week One of Web Building is coming to a close and all I can say is...WOW!!!!  The IMA kids created a welcome page, an "All About Me Page," and added a blog for daily writing.  The children are beginning to store finished writing projects on their website too.  Many children added a book log, documenting their reading for the entire year. 

Our next writing project is a literary essay, which will take the form of a book review.  We will study other reviews, develop our own check-list for a quality book review, and select a favorite book to share with an audience. 

Interesting observation:  The children are working so intently as they write and create that you can quietyly hear their brain cells humming and their creativity singing!  Feel free to visit our classrooms during writing workshop and check out our new websites.

Writing Project Update

Project One Completed:

The IMA students finished their first guided literary nonfiction projects and you can see their stories on our class wiki (http://imaexplorers.wikispaces.com) Our literary nonfiction book study and first supported writing projects (the cottontail or coyote story) now lead into independent literary nonfiction projects based on the standards for our grade levels.  For their second project, each student selected a topic of interest, planned a story, and are currently conducting research to support the story.  In our first project, students focused on learning how to organize and set a purpose for their story.  During the second project, IMA writers will focus on the craft of writing and will learn to create interesting leads and use active words and descriptive language to bring life and details to their writing. 

This is such an exciting time for the IMA writers!  Their extended reading and writing projects have made such a difference in their literacy development.  The careful selection of vivid words and scientific vocabulary, writing stories with a structure and purpose, while becoming digital writers are just a few of the positive benefits of this unit so far.  We will share our second writing projects with you as they develop, so keep checking our wiki.

Looking Ahead:  Our next unit will combine the power of biographies with narrative writing as students learn to create stories about their own lives.  Memoirs, personal narratives, and creative narratives are a challenge, but the children are ready to try new forms of writing.  Our continuing poetry studies will focus on narrative poems that reflect personal aspects of readers and writers' lives.

 This has been an exciting week for the IMA students!  On Monday, we learned about wikis and we set up our own pages at our new wiki called:  IMA Explorers (http://imaexplorers.wikispaces.com.)  Each child now has his/her own username and password, so you can visit the site and see what students are doing.

We discussed how this writing tool and the social networking available through the wiki would help us grow as writers.  Over the course of the week, students have used their personal writing spaces to draft and revise collective current writing  projects:  a literary nonfiction story about an animal living in or near Chapman's Habitat. 

Team S is creating stories about a day in the life of an injured coyote while Team M is busy creating a story documenting a day in the life of a cottontail rabbit.  We plan to share our creations with other Chapman students and the community.  A purposeful project only adds to the enthusiasm!

The students are blending the art of narrative writing with the big ideas and details of nonfiction writing.  Each writer developed a story plan so accurate information could be infused throughout the narrative.  Our biggest focus:  show, don't tell the reader what is happening in the story.  We are already seeing so many amazing drafts from students!  The other evident feature:  the children are SO motivated by digital writing. 

Stay tuned for more exciting learning adventures