1st week, 2nd Quarter!

For many children it can be a little hard to come back to school after a break, but it was a fun-filled week and we were able to get right back into our routines like we never missed a beat!  We spent a little bit of each day practicing our poems with a partner.  Students came up with introductions for their selections.  Midweek, on Wednesday and Thursday the students presented their selections to the class.  Wow!  The interpretations were amazing!  Later on Friday a few students were selected from our class to present to our fourth grade buddy class.   

Here is a summary of what happened in our classroom:

​In Langauge Arts...

• Using realistic fiction, students identified different story elements like characters, setting, problem & solution to various stories we read this week in Wonders.  After identifying these story elements, we practiced sequencing the events of the stroy in order.  Students learned how to determine the beginning, middle, and end (BME) of stories and what information is significant and what information is not necessary to include in the retell. 
• The essential question this week was How do animals survive?  Using the realistic fiction story A Visit to the Desert, students located different ways animals survive in the desert. They filled out a chart about animal adaptations and went back to find the page number they found the information for text evidence.  For example, from this story, they learned that the desert tortoise carries his homes on his back, burrows underground and hides in the shade of rocks to keep cool from the desert heat;  jackrabbits have extra large ears to help them release heat to help them stay cool;  and the hornet owl hunts at night and sleeps during the hot day to survive the daytime heat. 
• Later, students read two more text, one realistic fiction called Sled Dog and one Expository text called Cold Dog Hot Fox.  After students either independently or with a partner identified story elements and BME for Sled Dog, together we created a double-bubble thinking map to compare the dogs that live in extreme cold from both texts.  
• Students' grammar lessons consisted of how to use quotation marks to show dialogue, review of end punctuation marks, and review of inflectional endings, such as ing, ed, s, and es.  This week students were introduced to three prefixes.  They learned that the prefix un means "not," re means "again", and dis means "opposite of."  We talked about the word parts and how the word changes by adding the prefixes.  

In math...

• Students reviewed what they knew about subtraction using subtraction stories and representing them with base-ten cubes.  Students learned that addition can be used to help check subtraction problems.  
• Students learned that when one part is three are less, the count-back strategy is very effective.  They practiced this using the number line.  Then they thought about related addition problems.  For example for 12 -3 = 9, the related addition fact would be 9 + 3 = 12.  
• Students reinforced their understanding of Total - Part = Part and Part + Part = Total by solving word problems.  They investigated the unknown addend in subtraction word problems.  They used both the subtraction and addition methods to solve.  For example:  There were 12 bears on a bus.  Some bears got off the bus.  Now there are 9 bears left on the bus.  The only matching equation is 12 - ? = 3.  However, once students write this equation down to represent the story, they can choose to solve using a method of their choice (subtraction or addition).  They could start at 12 and count-back 3 (subtraction), or they could start at 9 and count-on to 12 (addition) to find the unknown.  

In Social Studies...

• Students are using a Comic Book app on their iPads to create a comic to teach their younger buddies about Stranger Danger.  

REMINDERS AND ANNOUCEMENTS

• Parent teacher conferencing start on Wednesday.  There will be early release everyday from Wednesday on until Friday the 11/3 to accommodate Parent teacher conferences.  Besides the normal Wednesday dismissal, school will get out everyday at 1:05 p.m. starting Thursday.  Wednesdays will remain the same 12:50 dismissal.