Let's Be Everyday Heroes!

Connecting our pervious unit about citizenship with our heroes unit, we talked about how being a good citizen can also mean being a hero.  We also discussed what an "everyday hero" is and how doing something small can be big.  Sometimes the most insignificant thing - saying hi to someone, asking someone with no friends to play, helping a friend carry something, picking up trash that's not yours, picking up a pencil that's on the floor instead of stepping over it so someone doesn't slip, can make some of the biggest differences.  Students talked about all these little things that seems so small, but leave lasting impressions and make us "everyday heroes!"  

Here is a summary of what happened in our classroom:

​In Langauge Arts... 

• To supplement our unit from last week, we read about another very important hero named Malala Yousafzai, a female educational activist who stood up to the Taliban and survived an assassination attempt, and at only 17 years old became the youngest person ever to win a Nobel Peace Prize.  To address standard 2.RL.3 Describe the connection between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, students sequenced events in Malala's life using time-order words. 

• Students learned about Ruby Bridges and her impact on Civil Rights and American History.  We read The Story of Ruby Bridges by Robert Coles and learned about what her life was like everyday going to school in an empty classroom with a crowd of angry white men, women and children shouting at her, but how she remained brave, courageous and hopeful through it all.  

In Writing... 

• Students are publishing their final drafts on a google doc where they can make any last revisions. 
• Students have began a second opinion writing on 'What animal makes the best pet?'

​In Math... 

• Students used the partitioning (sharing) model to determining the number of objects in each share.  Students noticed a relationship between division and multiplication.  
• Using counters, students arranged quantities into equal groups.   
• Students explored different representation of one-half, one-third, and one-fourth by folding paper shapes into equal parts, shading one part, and writing a fraction to represent that shaded part.  
• Students focused on recognizing that the same fraction can be represented in a number of object, lengths, or shapes that differ.  This helped students to see that the size of the fraction is proportionate to the size of the whole.  

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 Announcements:

• iReady diagnostic will be on Monday and Tuesday.  Please make sure your child gets a good night's rest and a well-balanced breakfast.  Also, please have your child arrive on time to school on both days.  
• Thank you to all of my lovely students and parents of D103 for making Teacher's Appreciation Week so special.  It was a week to remember always.  Thank you for all the goodies and I love my T-shirt from the entire class!  Thank you!