Classroom Update - Happy February

Reader’s Workshop

This week, we continued our author study. I used Kevin Henkes books to model to students how to complete the author study packet. Students worked on a page where they needed to look for similarities and differences between the author’s texts. For example, Kevin Henkes used mouse characters in most of his stories (like Owen, Lilly, and Julius). In only one story did Kevin Henkes write about a human (Jessica), a kitten (Kitten’s First Full Moon), and a bear (Old Bear). Students also spend Reader’s Workshop time reading personal information about their authors. Each student wrote down facts that they found interesting about their author’s life. For example, Kevin Henkes went to college to be an artist and only enjoyed writing as a hobby. Students also had to think about where their author gets ideas for writing stories, like from childhood, travel or interests. Class noticings about our authors:

Writer's Workshop

Students continued learning more about Jonathan London as a writer. We read Froggy Builds a Treehouse this week. Students pointed out things Jonathan London did in his writing, like using dialogue. The class learned how to use talking marks (quotation marks) around a sentence that someone is speaking. Students used comic strips to practice turning a speech bubble into written dialogue for a story. Students also worked on adding dialogue to their own stories, noticing who is speaking and what they are saying.

Math Workshop

This week, students started Unit 6 of the Everyday Math. Unit 6 focuses on estimates, partial sums addition, and graphing. We reviewed Ballpark Estimates and rounding.

Students remembered that if the number in the ones place is less than 4 they round down to the nearest tens and if it is 5 or more they round up to the nearest tens. Students learned the Partial Sums method for addition problems. For partial sums, add the tens place, add the ones place, and then add them together. Students learned how to collect data and then graph the information. We tallied favorite foods of classmates, then graphed our findings. The majority class favorite fell under the meat category!

Science

This week, students completed the wind portion of our Air, Wind and Weather unit. Students created kites using paper, string, tape, and streamers. The class pointed out that kites, flags and bubbles help someone notice how windy it is outside.

We also started the weather portion of our science unit. Students have been tracking the weather during Morning Meeting and recording it on their own weather calendars in their science folders.

Social Studies

Students continued learning about landforms in Geography. Each student identified their favorite landform and described why it was their favorite. Students match landforms to their definitions.

Family Science Night

Thursday was Family Science Night at Wass. We had a great turn out from parents and students! It was so nice to see some smiling, familiar faces come visit in the Music room for the Visible Thinking routine. Here is the Compass Points routine that students created after reading an article on Clown Fish and Nemo:

Reminders:

- 100th Day of School and Mrs. Wood's 1st day back: February 11th
- Valentine’s Day Parties: February 14th at 2:15 p.m.
- Mid-Winter Break: February 18-19, 2013
- SPRING BREAK: March 29-April 5, 2013

Valentine's Day Info: