Scholastic Books!
The Scholastic Book order is IN! If you placed a Scholastic order, your books are in a manila envelope in your child’s cubby to go home today (Friday). I was able to order 10 new books for Mrs. Wood’s classroom library with her bonus points and reward coupons. Typing in her classroom code (JK3MD) during orders helps build Mrs. Wood’s classroom library so that students have more/new choices when shopping for books!
Spelling
This week we started Unit 7 of Word Study. Students met the H Brothers: Sheldon, Charlie, Thad, and Whit. Students will sort th, ch, sh, and wh words until the Unit 7 spelling test on Wednesday, December 19th.
Reader's Workshop
Students are working on improving
their comprehension by connecting to a story. We have been working on text to text
connections, where students listen to or read a story and it reminds them of
another story they have read before. I have been modeling phases like, “When I read ____ it
reminded me of the book____” or “when I read that page it made me think of the book____” When students connect one story to
another story that they know, it helps them to better understand what is
happening in both stories. Students have been using sticky notes during
independent reading time with books from their book boxes. They write their
text-to-text connections down on the sticky note, if they have one, and stick
it inside their book. We share the sticky notes to see what kind of connection
students have between stories. 
Students retold the stories Ruby the Copycat and Jamaica
Tag-Along. Students noticed a connection between Ruby and Jamaica. They
noticed that Ruby and Jamaica were a lot alike, because they both like to copy
someone else. In both stories the person who is being copied gets annoyed and speaks up to both Ruby and Jamaica.
Writer's Workshop
For Grinch week, we read “How the Grinch Stole
Christmas.” Students brainstormed ideas on how they could cheer up the
Grinch. I gave them the writing prompt: To Make the Grinch Grin, I would… Students
brainstormed what they would do and wrote a rough draft. We revised their writing and
students turned it into their best work.
Math Workshop
We spent some more time on
ballpark estimates to solve mutli-digit addition problems. Students remembered to round the
numbers to the nearest tens before adding, and then they compared the estimate
to the real answer to see how close they were. We reviewed Unit 4 on Wednesday
and took the test on Thursday. We reviewed how to read story problems. Students
circled or underlined the important information first before trying to solve. Student made a Grinch story problem book to practice their story problem reading skills. 
Science
We continued the air portion of
the Weather, Air, and Wind unit this week. Students experimented with
parachutes to find out how air affects a parachute. They assembled parachutes
with a napkin, a paper clip, four pieces of string, and four sticky dots. Students
learned that air gets trapped underneath the parachute in order to slowly drop
down to the ground. 
Students experimented with syringes and flexible tubes. They tested their own ideas on how to make the plunger move inside the barrel. Students decided that air has to move from one barrel to another barrel through the flexible tube when two syringes are connected. They decided that air is everywhere and has to move, it doesn't just disappear.
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