Oct 20^th 2008:  Today my kid surprised me by already having his I am poem finished! He did a good job and was really proud of his work. After we read the poem, the kids taught us the four square method for writing. It is a quick straight forward way to write and structure the story. We started brainstorming ideas for his family story. We got three ideas fairly developed and he will pick which one he really wants to write about by Thursday. Next week we should be in the four square process starting to put the story together!

Oct 27^th 2008: Today Mrs. Bradshaw had us rewrite a story about Halloween that my kid had done, but didn’t follow the four square writing process that they had been working on. We helped him rewrite the story from scratch following the four square process. I could tell that he wasn’t really into it and it was like pulling nails trying to get a story out of him, but he had some great ideas and eventually he came up with a funny and scary Halloween story. We will have to push the family story off till next week.

Nov 3^rd 2008: Today we started the 4 square process on the family story. He had lots of ideas already in his head and we got them out in a good format to start writing the actual story. We also found his I Am poem and will work on that again next week. I think that he his story is off to a great start and he should have a first draft ready for next week.

Nov 10^th 2008: Today we had an extra student in our group. Tristin has been absent a lot so we took him with us to catch him up. We finished his 4 square process and got over half of his first draft written. I read the kids my first draft of my story before we started as a kind of warm up. It was a little more difficult than usual keeping them focuses, but we were still able to do some great work. Tyler had previously finished his 4 square process and he spent the hour completing his first draft. I gave both boys homework. Tyler will bring in two illustrations for his story and Tristin will finish his first draft. I made 3 copies of their work so far and put it in their reading folders. Today was a great productive day and I think they are doing very well.