This week we started exploring fossils. Most students did not know what fossils are, and some students had limited understanding of fossils.
We learned about 2 types of fossils - Bone Fossils Imprint Fossils Most students are familiar with bone fossils. Yesterday we did an experiment to put a concrete example of imprint fossils in our head. We took toy dinosaur bones and pushed them into clay. Then we compared the body parts to the imprint fossils to see if we noticed similarities and differences. Can you tell which body part made each imprint?
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Over the past week we have worked toward publishing our writing. Here are the steps we have taken:
1. Write a story about a vacation with a beginning, 3 middle details, and an ending. 2. Edit our story. This includes fixing our spelling using tools around the room, checking spaces, looking for correct punctuation, using upper and lowercase letters in the right places, and reading our story to make sure it makes sense! 3. Put our story into book format. 4. Review book to make sure there are no mistakes. 5. Create an ebook that we will be able to share with the class. We have used two resources to create ebooks - Little Bird Tales and Story Buddy. These books with be posted as soon as we complete them! We have also explored My Story Maker this past week. We will continue to use this resource in the computer lab regularly! Our class started studying Informational Text, in other words, Non-Fiction books. There are several characteristics we will talk about over the course of the next few weeks that you may use at home to reinforce our learning in the classroom. We consider the diagram picture to represent "Labels." We also discuss other styles of text. Other topics we discuss:
Last week we officially started our Math Enrichment. This is a time for me to really differentiate math instruction for all learning levels. It allows the opportunity to meet with students and teach them specific strategies and skills to help them grow as mathematicians. For the past few months, we've used www.scootpad.com off and on. This will play a strong roll in our Math Enrichment time. ScootPad is a program aligned to the Common Core State Standards (what your child will be learning next year). ScootPad offers 2 areas - math and reading. We have only used the math portion.
Students log in and complete practice pages to reinforce strategies learned in class. As the teacher, I can control the level each student starts at. Once a student passes a level, they move on. If they struggled, the level repeats. I can view student progress and see what each student needs to learn to be successful at each level. So as I meet with groups of students, the other students will practice skills on ScootPad. ScootPad is available for you to use at home, too! If your child knows their username and password, just log right on. If your child does not know, contact me and I can get the information to you! Another program we will use is MobyMath. This is very similar to ScootPad, just a different website. Over the past few weeks we've worked on a comprehension strategy called, "Visualizing." Visualizing helps us picture the story in our heads like a movie.
I read a poem as the students illustrated what they pictured in their heads. I then compiled the poem and illustrations into an eBook you can download! We repeated the process to produce two fabulous books to read in our classroom and at home. Last week we wrote letters to Santa. We started our week reading I Wanna New Room! In this story, Alex writes letters to his dad explaining why he wants a new room. In the end, Dad writes a letter to Alex saying he understands and will provide Alex a space of his own. We used this book to create a letter format. Our format looks like: Dear _____________, __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________ From, __________________________ Our letters have been sent to Santa. We hope to get a reply back!
Within our Families unit for content, we are learning about different traditions around the holiday season. So far we discussed the Nutcracker, St. Lucia day, Advent, and this week we are discussing the story of The Gingerbread Man. As you may already know, there are many gingerbread stories. This week we have read... Many students already heard most of these stories. There are a few more we will read leading up to winter break. Of course, next week we will be making Gingerbread Houses! The kids are excited for this. One student commented on how we should have read The Gingerbread Baby that day because Mattie makes a gingerbread house in that story. To connect our literature to what we have been learning during Daily 5, we have created a chart. Here's what it looks like so far. We write the book and add characters from the story as well as the settings. As we do this the students notice the similarities and differences between the stories. For example, there is a bear in The Gingerbread Man but not in The Gingerbread Baby. Tomorrow we will add The Gingerbread Girl to our chart.
I look forward to seeing you when we make our houses! In a previous post I mentioned the make a ten strategy. This week we dove into the concept and looked at the foundation and number sense we need in order to use this strategy efficiently. At the beginning of the week, we started exploring this strategy using cubes. I put a pile of cubes in front of small groups of students and asked them how many cubes they had. Immediately each group started forming "10 sticks." This is something they are familiar with from our daily math routine we complete after recess. Each group had some "tens" and "ones" left over. Counting by tens until they reached the ones, most groups had between 90-110 cubes. Then we charted how many tens each group had and how many ones, as well as the number they had all together.
You can do this at home! Most snacks have many pieces. Fruits snacks and Goldfish crackers are examples. Ask your child how many they have of their snack. Then ask if there's a different way to count it (1's, 2's, 5's, or 10's). This will help them become flexible thinkers and prepare them for addition and subtraction of larger numbers. Over the past few weeks we've learned about what makes up our sentences. We focused on 3 different parts of speech: Noun - A person, place or thing Verb - It's what you do Adjective - Describes a noun To tie together Nouns and Adjectives, we created a "web." Each student chose a noun and created 5 points sticking out from the noun. On each point the student had to write an adjective describing the noun they chose. Here's an example: In this case, the noun is "DOG" and some adjectives include "hairy" and the color the dog may be.
It's easy to focus on adjectives at home. You can play "I spy" or "I'm thinking of something..." While you're reading you can pick adjectives to describe the main character. There are many possibilities! Over the past few weeks I have worked with small groups to help us learn addition strategies. We focus on... Plus 1 and Pl;us 2 Counting on Doubles Doubles Plus 1 and Doubles Plus 2 Make a 10. I want to explain some of the strategies. This way when you're helping with homework you are familiar with the language we use in class as well as strategies to help your child. Plus 1 and Plus 2 The picture above demonstrates one more or two more than a number. Students should start with the bigger number and understand one more and two more. Students would start with the 5. They would say "1 more than 5 is 6." Students would start with the 6. They would say, "2 more than 6 is 8." Count On Counting on means the student does not need to count 6 and then count 4 more. The student should know 6 automatically (because they see the number) and then count on from there. Students would say, "6...7, 8, 9, 10" Doubles Once students know facts within 10, we start learning doubles. Students should know doubles starting with 1+1 and ending with 10+10. They should know these from memory with no counting. Students would say, "I know 5 and 5 is 10." Doubles Plus 1 Because students understand 1 more, and they also know doubles facts, this strategy combines those two ideas to create more efficient problem solving. Students would look at 5+6 and realize 6 is close to 5. They could break 6 down to be 5+1. So the problem would look like 5+5+1 in their head. Students would then put together 5+5 to make 10 and then say "1 more than 10 is 11." Doubles Plus 2 This is an extension on Doubles Plus 1. Students can see the "near doubles" fact and manipulate the numbers to break it into smaller, easier to manage, numbers. Students would say, "If I take away 2 from 8 I have a doubles problem. 6+6 is 12. I add the 2 back on. 2 more than 12 is 14." This can also be viewed as a Doubles Minus 2 problem, using 8+8 instead of 6+6. Make a 10
Make a 10 is our most difficult strategy. If students can manipulate Doubles plus 1 and 2 they can easily transition to Make a 10. The idea is to see 10 in the numbers and add on from there (since 10 is really easy to add on to). Students would say, "If I take 1 away from 7 I have 6. I put the 1 with the 9 to make 10. So 9+7 = 10+6 = 16." This can be applied to other decade numbers once understood (20, 30, 40...). |
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April 2014
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