: Jayne collaborated with a peer and worked on role-playing hypothetical situations using one of her puppets as a prop. She demonstrated excellent critical thinking skills, good depth of knowledge, and applied highly effective and creative strategies when problem-solving.

Kellan enjoyed a game of catch in which he had to say an example of the part of speech named before he could throw a ball. Parts of speech used in the game were nouns, verbs and adjectives. Before creating a story, Kellan determined the characters, setting, problem and solution. We took turns adding sentences to the story. Focus was on sequence and cohesion.

Christopher did well sorting his spelling words by vowel patterns. After summarizing what was read so far in 'Westlandia', Christopher read the rest of the story. Focus was on theme and context clues. Using the outline he created yesterday, Christopher began to write the first draft of his essay on a strange journey. He is enjoying creating the story. Christopher did well reading multi-syllabic words and then reading those same words with prefixes and/or suffixes added to the root word. Christopher proofread given sentences and corrected for end puncutation, spelling and subject/verb agreement.

Jayne and I edited her creative writing story together. She was receptive to hearing the edits regarding grammar and punctuation. We reviewed capitalization rules, compound, and hyphenated words before concluding today's session.

Jayne was encouraged to review her story as she is now well into the third chapter of her book, 'A Box in the Garden,' which she titled 'Exploding Birds.' This comes after chapter II, titled, ‘A Strange Flower.' I asked Jayne how she comes up with the titles of her manuscripts and chapters. We discussed the importance of coming up with a catchy title as it’s usually the first introduction readers have to one’s work; therefore, selecting a title that grabs one’s attention and that accurately describes the contents of your book will make people want to read further.

This morning, we discussed how to plan and organize a hands-on 'how-to project,' on how to make a mask. Richard was tasked with outlining and ordering the steps needed to create a mask. He first decided upon his subject and then chose the picture he wanted copied. Richard had precise ideas and suggested ways to input the information online to get the correct copy he wanted for the mask. He was specific; he wanted it to approximate the dimensions of his head and to be smiling. After we printed out our copy, Richard understood that the next step was to find a suitably-sized plate. He was then going to cut out its eyes and either trace it or glue it onto the plate. He had a particular strategy in mind, and he was clear on the steps needed to achieve this objective. Richard demonstrated good critical thinking skills and we enjoyed a productive session.

This morning, we focused on strategies to respond to writing prompts. Jayne was given a choice of two prompts from which she was asked to select the one that most resonated with her. She was advised to highlight key ideas that immediately and intuitively came to mind after reading the prompt and was asked open-ended questions to help guide and organize her thought process. Jayne was reminded to analyze the prompt, create a quick plan, write her response, review her writing, and check for proper formatting, spelling, punctuation, and grammar. Jayne wrote a brief response and we analyzed her response together. She needed an occasional reminder to check for proper capitalization, comma usage, and formatting. Jayne was also encouraged to elaborate and to take careful note of the specifications of the prompt. The prompt today asked her to provide at least one example, which - in her haste - she failed to provide. Jayne demonstrates highly effective and sophisticated writing skills, but prefers to follow her own agenda. She acknowledged this to be true, but added that she knows she will need to craft answers for different writing purposes and is aware of the importance of applying appropriate writing conventions.

Jayne was not online this morning.

This afternoon, we worked on preparing work on compositional skills. We discussed the sequencing and ordering of information from texts we've read, and Lucas reviewed the words he had written for his Bio Poem. We completed a cut-and-paste activity in which Lucas used specialty scissors with which to complete a presentation of the poem, and he chose the scissors with the pattern he liked the most. We made a copy of it and made an additional copy to place on his cork-board. He enjoyed practicing with the scissors - and cut papers with it. Tomorrow, we will edit our Grouchy Ladybug narrative and begin to practice writing the narrative of the text on lined paper in order to complete a book report we've begun to write in recent weeks. We hope to collaborate with Ms. Anna on the design and are both looking forward to deliberating on the pictures we hope to draw to accompany the text.

Jayne worked on a grammar activity online with me which tasked her to write the correct word from a choice of two that have similar sounds or spellings. Jayne got 90% on the exercise, only getting confused between the usage of the words 'accept' and 'except' on the first example, although this might have been attributed to being unsure of expectations at the onset of the task. Jayne understood the meaning of the two different word options given to her as examples, and we defined and used each in different sentences. I also asked Jayne if she understood the edits on her creative writing story I had emailed to her, and she acknowledged that she understood most. It will be easier to go over the edits when Jayne returns to school next week, so we will address the suggested revisions then, and I assured her I did not change any of her content. The last exercise we were to begin required that the screen be shared. As there was just a few minutes left to our half hour session, I emailed the work to Jayne's Batt School account and she confirmed receipt of it. We will review it together tomorrow.