Happy Monday! Well, I have just decided every week is just as busy, so her are a few pictures from our week. We are using our LD Ipads and the students thought the Word Wall game was fun. Each week, we will work on either Language Arts, Math or Science with the IPads. There are many apps available and we will use quite a few of them. The new Word Families each week will be attached to the Homework Calendar beginning today.
In Reading Workshop, we have begun collecting books in their Just Right bags. These bags are filled with books they can read independently during Readers' Workshop. They will be getting new books weekly and will begin selecting one book to take home on October 10th. Please read the little notes so that you are aware of the skill being worked on.
In writer's workshop, we have begun learning about what a small moment is. We unrolled balls of clay while telling an entire story. The clay then became a long snake by the time we finished talking. The small moment was taught by then breaking off a small piece of clay from the long skinny piece. This small piece represents only one part of the story you are going to write about. The book I referred to was, A Chair for my Mother by Vera B. Williams. The mother and little girl saved up for a long time to buy a new chair and lots of different things happened in the story. The small moment was a story by itself. Why did they need a new chair? The family had a fire and all their furniture was burned so they were working on replacing one piece at a time. I am getting the students to think of one small moment happening to them inside of a much longer adventure. This will lead into personal narratives.
In Math, we have begun recognizing and telling time to the hour. This program teaches using an analog clock, rather than reading digital. The little hand has power and so it shows the hour. The students were given small clocks to manipulate and read. We also learned the Penny Cup game on the computer. The students have to figure what the number is, and what the difference between two numbers up to 20 is.
We have discussed the importance of getting sleep and rest. Why are healthy habits so important. We also talked about the five senses sending messages to the brain.
International Day of Peace was great fun. We all put our rocks into the giant peace symbol out by the flag. We came together as a community this morning and shared writing, sang songs and added the rocks to the lower division peace sign. We also hung up important peace messages on the doors.
I sent home a copy of my Conference Day schedule.
Have a great week! We will.