Last week and the few days this week were spent finishing some units, almost finishing others, and starting some new ones as well! Math: In math, we are getting close to finishing our first introduction unit to multiplication and division. Last week we worked on the commutative property and this week on the distributive property. Commutative Property Example: 3 x 5 = 5 x 3 Distributive Property Example: 8 x 5 = (3 x 5) + (5 x 5) 8 x 5 = 15 + 25 8 x 5 = 40 A graded quiz (Topic E) will be coming home next week! Keep your eyes out for it in your child's homework folder. We also started Math Labs in our class. Parents flooded our classroom and put the students into different groups. Students spend about 20 minutes working on math problems at their current math level. Some are working on single-digit addition/subtraction, double-digit addition/subtraction, triple-digit addition/subtraction, and multiplication. We also started Rocket Math. Students are taking a multiplication facts test EVERY day. They get one minute to reach their goal. Students shouldn't have to take the same test for more than a few days if they are practicing at home regularly. Please, please, please ensure the are practicing nightly. It is essential they know these facts fluently. Reading: Last week we finished our Unit: Building Our Reading Lives. We learned about summaries, checking for comprehension, inferencing, and how to tackle challenging words. This week we started our Mystery Unit. Students entered class on Monday with caution tape on the door and caution tape surrounding our bench. The students noticed the pillows had gone missing. Students participated in a scavenger hunt throughout the school to get them back. Students also had the opportunity to study their fingerprints. Both activities were designed to get students excited about reading mysteries! Writing: Students chose one of their narrative, small moment stories from their collection they had started over the past few weeks. Students spent a couple days illustrating the beginning, middle, and end, where they included thoughts bubbles, characters talking, and details such as what they heard, smelled, saw, and felt. Students used those pictures to help them write their flash draft. Next, students are going to learn different strategies to improve their writing! Science: As mentioned in the email last week, we had a genetic scientist visit our classroom to introduce what DNA is to our students and how it makes up "Who We Are" (our PYP Unit). Students had the opportunity to create their own DNA model. They LOVED this activity. We are so fortunate! Students also did an apple tasting activity. Students tasted four different types of apples and recorded whether the apple was very sweet, sweet, sour, or very sour. Students learned how apples can be created to make sweeter apples through selection. Students are working on their final project for the our PYP unit: Who We Are. They are creating their own creature that needs to inherits 3-5 traits from its parents as well as acquiring 3-5 traits. A couple pictures from Exploration Friday! Students engaging in the game Apples to Apples where they are working on their communication skills and other students expressing their creativity through art.
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Math: We spent most of the week working on reading story problems and solving them using the RDWW method. R= Read and reread the question D= Draw a picture to show your thinking W= Write a math equation (sentence) W= Write a word sentence answer the question I require the students to have the same answer for both their math equation and word sentence. For example: 3 x 4 = 12 (number sentence) and "There were 12 people altogether" (word sentence). Students are working on determining if a math problem requires either multiplication or division to solve the problem. They had a quiz their Topic D quiz this week that most brought home on Thursday. Reading: We worked on our five finger summaries. We practiced this skill with picture books. We wrote summaries to go along with them. See the picture to understand the term 5 finger summary. Students used these questions to help them configure a paragraph about a specific book or chapter they read.
Writing: We revisited the term "Show, Not Tell" which is something most students recognized from second grade. The students practiced doing an example with their writing partner. I gave them the sentence "I ate breakfast" which sounded more of a reported than of a storyteller. Students changed this example into something better. They did OUTSTANDING. We talked about storytellers use dialogue and they explain what they see around them or what they smell, taste, hear, or see. Science: Students visited a series of 5 different stations in which they had free choice as to how they visited each one. The stations revolved around the concept of inherited traits in animals and plants. They watched videos about dolphins, why leaves change color in the fall, they read book all about heredity, learned what was needed to grow a garden, and what crocs have to do in order for their eggs to hatch and their babies to survive. The students were SO engaged in this activity and did a wonderful job working with their partner to learn something new! Reminders: Popcorn Friday is this Friday! (New: Limit 2 bags of popcorn) Conference sign-ups went live! Check your email for the link. Walk and Bike to School is on Wednesday! |
Sept. 14th- First Day of Online Learning
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