Twenty-Eighth Day of School

Today we practiced using a checklist for reviewing our writing. The checklist is a tool devised as a means for writers to check to see if they have everything required in their writing sample in order to pass a writing examination. We will be taking our narrative writing exam next week. Students may be interviewed by their parents so parents may learn which story a child is most likely to tell during the writing exam.

In Social Science today we learned about the United States Independence Day. We learned facts such as:

• Before having an elected President, who ruled what is now the United States?
• From which country was it necessary to declare our independence?
• What did George Washington do before becoming our first President?
• On what day do we celebrate our independence and why that day?

On last night's some students were confused with the part/part/whole when they went to construct the model on their own. When performing subtraction, the model remains with the two parts being above the whole. The difference between subtraction and addition is that with addition, the whole (sum) is the unknown (so the lower space is empty), with subtraction, a part (addend) is unknown and one of the upper spaces will be empty.

In Drama we practiced collaboration on one-scene tableaus.

Nineteenth Day of School

Reminder: Kids' tops worn to school should have sleeves.

We listened to a non-fiction selection about the life cycle of tigers in the wild. Tomorrow we will retell the selection using our oral vocabulary words. Comprehension questions:

• Why do male tigers have to leave the pride when they are 2 years old?
• Why are the playing activities important for tiger cubs?

Please continue to have your child retell small moment stories at home in order to develop oral language. It would also be wise to occasionally ask them how they know a particular answer is correct on their homework. Ask them to show you how they know (tested skill). Or, ask them to teach you how to do a particular problem. Have them walk you through the steps so they are articulating their strategy.

In Science today we examined a collection of solids and generated a list of properties for solids.

In Drama we worked on developing our skills in tableau. It was easy to see which students are able to maintain a clear focus (standard).

Preview Unit 1 Week 3

In this week's instruction we focus on  how we will change and how we have changed as we grow. If your child would like to bring in a photo showing themselves as a baby, we could display these and guess who they grew into. We will also explore how animals change as they grow. We will draw conclusions about animals that change greatly and those that may only change in size as they mature. We will analyze text for character, setting, and plot. We will focus on spelling patterns: -in, -it, -iss. Our oral vocabulary words will be change, adult, learn, imitate, and practice. Our reading sight words will be be, ride, and run. In grammar we will distinguish between statements and questions.

In Writing, we will begin the revision portion of our process.

In Social Science, we will discuss the difference between rights and responsibilities and what they mean for United States citizenship (HSS 1.1).

In Math we will continue our work with chapter 1.

In Health we will continue our overview of the concept of "good health."

In Science we continue comparing properties of various solids. We use our insight into these properties to perform an investigation.

In Drama we will begin our work on tableau.

In PE we will begin to work with team members to accomplish goals. Due to weather considerations we may have indoor PE on Monday and Tuesday.

Fifteenth Day of School

We will have our first Mid-Chapter Test Friday afternoon.

Today we practiced pantomime in Drama.

We began drafting our second personal narrative. We also took a dictation test focusing on short vowel spellings including a surprise spelling of the 'short e' sound spelled 'ea'.

Tomorrow we will retell The Great Rope Tug with our oral vocabulary. 

Twelfth Day of School

Today we had our first Drama lesson (Theatre Art).

We retold the story Princess and the Pea using our oral vocabulary words. We also took our second dictation quiz.

In Writing we worked on our plan for our first personal narrative. Tomorrow we will begin drafting.

In Math we worked on problem solving. We had to identify the information being asked for. Choose a strategy, and then write a number sentence (also a strategy). The strategies discussed were:

• Draw a model.
• Make a table
• Write a number sentence (math sentence/equation)
• Act it out (with manipulatives)

We completed lesson 7 of the violence prevention training.