After reading several more chapters in 'The One and Only Ivan,' Hank used inference to answer questions about why George agreed to paste Ivan's artwork on the billboard, even though he could be fired for doing it. Hank connected to earlier events when explaining why Ivan decided to go into the box. We made some predictions about Bob's future based on his character traits.

Hank participated in a school-wide activity. Busch Wildlife came for "Wild Wednesday" showing & sharing facts about wild animals. For the remainder of our session, we discussed the animals that were shown to us by Busch Wildlife. I then read aloud, "Gila Monster", from the book that was given to us by Busch Wildlife, "Reptiles for Kids". Hank then illustrated this reptile. I was going to have Hank write facts down about this reptile but we did not have enough time.

Hank resumed his reading of 'The One and Only Ivan,' looking for more evidence of Ivan's need to protect his friends. He could infer Ivan's feelings as his plan seemed to fail and notice the changes in Mack's feelings when he saw the billboard. Hank also noted the differences in Ruby from stubborn and resistant to her present state of resignation.

I had Hank pull a reference image of the Mindcraft dragon that he wanted to make. I had Hank crumple up a piece of tinfoil to create the rectangular cube shape for the body of his dragon. I had Hank flatten the clay and cover the foil with clay.

Hank continued to practice determining the theme of a story. We used a short Pixar clip as an example, using 3 key questions to find the theme. Hank continued reading 'The One and Only Ivan,' looking for more evidence to support the idea that Ivan wants to protect his friends.

Hanks assignment consisted of creating an animal writing activity that would then be shown to Debbie and Ben, as they were completing the same assignment. Hank and I began our session with Hank deciding what animal he wanted to create. Hank was to create a hybrid animal- for example, a cat and a fish mixed. Hank created a Florida panther head, tiger body, and a lemur tail. Hank did great detail to his illustration. Once finished, Hank then had to describe his animal using descriptive words to see if Ben could guess it. Hank used excellent descriptive words such as it is extinct, it has stripes on its body, and it is endangered. Ben did the same and Hank had to guess what animal he created.

Continuing our study of themes, Hank read a passage about a milk mishap and identified its theme. As he read several more chapters in 'The One and Only Ivan,' we looked for evidence of the idea that Ivan wants to protect his friends. Hank found two examples, and we added them to a graphic organizer. We watched a video about the real Ivan, who lived for 27 years at the B+I Mall. Although the book is fictional, some things are taken from the real Ivan's life.

Hank and I began our session with a MadLibs, practicing with parts of speech. This is a great activity to get Hank warmed up for our session. Hank and I took turns reading a book about Jaguars. We then listened to a read aloud about Jaguars. Both books gave us a lot of information for Hank's informational writing piece. We will continue researching information about Jaguars.

Hank reviewed what he has learned about finding the theme of a story. We looked at some universal themes and themes from a few well-known movies. He practiced identifying the theme from a short passage. As we continued to read "The One and Only Ivan," we are looking at how the author expresses the theme through Ivan's feelings and experiences.

Hank and I began our session focusing on parts of speech, interacting with MadLibs. When asking Hank for a plural noun (food), he stated cheese. I then made "cheese" plural (cheeses). Hank said that he did not know "cheeses" was a word. This was a fun and good way to inform him. We then had a discussion regarding his next informational topic. He asked if he could do an animal again. Hank decided to do his next informational writing piece on jaguars. For the remainder of our session, we watched videos, retrieving information about Jaguars. Once back in person, we will gather more information and begin writing his draft in his journal then move onto typing his final draft.