August 24, 2014

We are back in the swing of things already!  We had a great first full week of school.  It has been fun getting to know one another.  We have a wonderful atmosphere in the room, and the kids are getting along well.  Below are some pictures of a fun group activity we did where students had to work together to build a tower out of spaghetti noodles and marshmallows.  I was very impressed with what they came up with!

   

In reading, we have been discussing how to choose a book that is not too easy or too hard.  Choosing books on our level helps us improve our reading!  We also reviewed book genres, and we did a project where students cut out books from the Scholastic book orders and decided which genre they fit into. Reading groups are starting this upcoming week, and we will be setting our routines for reading workshop.

                                
         

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
We started off writing name acrostic poems as a get to know you activity in writing.  We also worked on decorating our writer's notebook which we will be using daily in writer's workshop. We will start learning about personal narratives next week.

Math workshop will also be starting next week, so we have been doing some practice centers on multiplication facts.  Students are learning about the types of activities they will be doing during math workshop.  Our first chapter that we are starting covers place value.

Students learned that anyone can be a scientist this week in science.  We talked about how we are being scientists when we observe things in the world around us, as well as when we use a process to solve a problem.  We also began learning about the tools scientists use, and we will have a quiz next week over the tools.  Look for science notebooks to come home next week so students can study their notes for the quiz.  I The quiz will be on Friday.  I will have the students write this in their assignments books on Monday.  Earlier in the week we practiced being scientists by doing a fun problem solving activity.  Ask your child how they saved Fred in science class.