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Classroom News Updated: March 2010 |
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Here you will find some highlights and classroom news to keep you up to date!
Special Feature
Kids at Work- March Edition Vol. I
Mathematics
We have been working hard counting money and learning important concepts such as cost and change. It would greatly benefit the students to practice counting by 5's and 10's with numbers higher than 30. They should practice this counting up to 100! The students have played games such as Race to a Dollar and Mental Math: The Money Spinner and participated in various money lessons on the Smart Board. They have also begun applying these concepts in a problem solving format with word problems as well as questions that have more than one solution. It is plain to see that their hard work is really paying off!
We are currently finishing up our Amazing Animals unit with research on an animal of our choice. The students will be writing a four-five paragraph report using paraphrased information from nonfiction sources as part of our expository writing unit. We also finished our animal Webposters. You can view them here. The students were very conscientious and excited to create these posters while copying and pasting text, uploading an image and creating a hyperlink.
We are continuing to chart the types of books we are reading during Reader's Workshop and the students have begun to use their Genre Keys to help them set goals for themselves as readers. I was excited to see the students fill up their key rings before their long journey on the path of literacy.
Social Studies and Science
We continued with our map studies unit by integrating it into our animal research. We located many different animal habitats all over the world, and the students also found fact files on their animals by knowing where they were located on a world map.
During the integration of science and English language arts in this theme, the students are learning many new concepts and reviewing some important vocabulary words. We are discussing topics like animal habitats, protection, classification of animals and the food chain.
In the next few weeks we will be beginning our weather unit. The students will learn about how the weather affects our daily lives, the reasons for seasons and they will also be researching various types of weather conditions. We will also be exploring our ancestors during our "Communities: Then and Now" unit.
Special Feature
Kids at Work- February Edition Vol. I
Mathematics
The students have done a great job over the past few weeks with subtraction with regrouping. We relied on their knowledge of base ten blocks to help them understand the "why" behind what we are doing during each step of solving a problem. It seems the hardest thing for the students has been to accurately compute their basic subtraction facts. Again, the students are not mastering these facts until they are automatic. I will be posting some practice sheets to download off of the website for extra practice at home. Or if you would like me to send home some extra practice, feel free to send in a note.
Our problem solving skills continue to grow as the students are able starting to complete multi-step word problems that require them to use more than one strategy at a time. We have also been discussing the most efficient way to solve these problems, as there are often more than one strategy or procedure to choose from.
We launched our Amazing Animals theme by reading a fun story called Officer Buckle and Gloria. The student wrote a persuasive letter begging Officer Buckle to come back to Napville school. We continued our theme by diving into some interesting sea animals. We read nonfiction passages on the octopus, the seastar and the seahorse. We watch video clips from the United Streaming website and reviewed informative websites to obtain more information. We then paraphrased all of this information and took notes on what we had read. Next we practiced writing informational paragraphs about these amazing creatures. The students are almost ready to begin their independent research of an amazing animal for their first research report.
In reader's workshop, we started an informational (nonfiction) genre study over the past few weeks. Students have been reading texts and articles on various nonfiction topics. We have practiced margin reading which encourages inner conversation with the text being read. This is especially important when reading unfamiliar text in the content areas. We have also practiced other strategies such as Stop-Think-React. In writer's workshop the students have been working hard to add voice to their informational paragraphs, as well as to start them with better beginnings. We have also continued with our craft studies of various poetic devices to enhance students' poetry and writing overall.
Social Studies & Science
We started our maps and globes unit and the students are taking off around the world! We have practiced using a compass to help us locate things on a map and discussed all of the important features maps can have. We have left the
During the integration of science and English Language Arts in this theme, the students are learning many new concepts and reviewing some important vocabulary words. We are discussing topics like animal habitats, protection, classification of animals and the food chain.
Special Feature
Kids at Work- January Edition Vol. II
Mathematics
We are beginning our subtraction with regrouping unit this week by beginning with a game called Clear the Mat. The students practice regrouping numbers using base ten blocks only. This creates a foundation for when we begin to subtract two digit numbers with algebraic expressions. They are doing a great job following this process and have become experts at knowing when to regroup.
Reading and Writing
We will be starting our new amazing animals theme by reading about various sea creatures. We will be focusing on gathering interesting facts about these animals and developing our expository writing skills.
Reader's and Writer's Workshops
In Reader's Workshop we will be turning our focus to using various metacognitive strategies with nonfiction and informational text. We will also be practicing reading different articles in an interactive way. We also just finished our first Writer's Workshop unit of Response to Literature where the students practiced developing many of their reading responses during reader's workshop. Look for some of these pieces to be displayed on our Student Work Hall of Fame soon.
Social Studies & Science
We finished up our economy unit by practicing our new vocabulary when buying things from our classroom store. The students were able to identify income (tickets), goods (prizes), services (lunch with the teacher), producers (me) and consumers (the students). We will now be moving on to our maps and globes unit in social studies where students will learn all about how to read and obtain information from maps. In science, we will be focusing on animals and their classifications.
