We have begun typing our small-moment narrative stories on the computers! Students are much more apt to make their stories stronger and better when they don't have to re-write as often.
0 Comments
Today sure was a day of inquiry! First, in math this morning we began our new math unit. Throughout this unit we will be deepening our place value understanding and working with units of measure. Many of the activities revolve around the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. So first we read this story. Then we practiced estimating a bag of beans. As we started counting the beans (we made groups of tens), we had to revise many of our initial estimates (we had guessed far too low!). This activity reinforced that a number can consist of ones, tens, and hundreds, and that a hundred is made up of ten "tens." Then in science we made rocks! Last week we compared and contrasted sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic rocks. Today we got to make sedimentary rocks! This fun investigation helped us to see how different pieces of materials can come together to form a rock when heat and pressure is applied. Students layered the materials (which represent minerals) and applied the pressure. I will apply the heat tonight and bring the rocks in tomorrow. Here's the procedure and ingredient list in case you would like to make some rocks at home.
As I was updating our BLOG, I came across a few random pictures that don't really need their own post...but are still worth a share! So check them out below. :) Feelings show up on face and body. Characters in books have feelings! When you can’t figure out how they are feeling right away, you can make your face match the face of the character. Today we took pictures to make a poster. Students can then use this chart to see which face most closely matches the one they’re making, to know what word to use to describe that feeling. Today we focused on learning emotion words. Tomorrow we will begin building a stronger vocabulary to describe character's traits. We will also learn the difference between an emotion and a trait. Emotions describe how a character feels at a certain time. Ask yourself: How does the character feel right now? Traits describe the character’s personality. Ask yourself: How does the character usually behave? See below for the pictures that will be on our classroom poster. Today we learned about metamorphic, igneous, and sedimentary rocks. We learned how these rocks are formed, and then observed and took notes to compare and contrast traits/characteristics of each rock. Students are really getting great at observing and recording, two important scientist skills! Every Tuesday-Thursday the students go to a fluency center with our foster grandma, G-ma. The center is on a 3-week cycle for practicing different fluency skills. If you remember from a previous post, right now our big ideas for reading fluency are: 1. Fluency gets better the more learners read the same text. 2. Fluency will be a struggle if the text is too difficult. 3. The ultimate goal of fluency is better comprehension. This week the students rehearsed a reader's theater play to present to their classmates. This is great for practicing reading fluency, as it takes several reads to learn the words and to "read like an actor," changing our voice to match the plot and characters. Students did a great job for their first time, and recognized some ways in which they hope to improve for next time. Watch the videos below. |
Archives
September 2019
Categories |