How To Blow a Bubble
We continued the writing process for How-To Writing. As students are now aware the importance of explicit directions and vivid details, they were ready to write their second drafts! As students completed the writing portion, they went outside to test their procedures. The hands-on component was powerful as students were able to fix any steps that weren't clear or in the correct sequence. To conclude the Bubble Writing assignment students worked hard to transfer their writing onto a final draft. They used their best "author handwriting" and colored detailed pictures for each step. Stop by the bulletin board outside of our classroom to see the final products!
How To Writing at Home- After vacation students will continue this process at home with a topic that they are an expert on. Be on the look out in homework packets!
Math
For math students continued to explore and learn about the base-ten system. Materials such as the hundred chart, cubes and digiblocks were used to represent the meaning of addition.
Up until this point in the year students have learned many computational strategies for adding and subtracting single digit numbers. Many of these strategies apply to adding/subtracting multi-digit numbers as well. Fluency for math problems with multi-digit numbers requires a conceptual understanding of numbers. It is important to remember that number sense (i.e. mental math and estimation) for adding and subtracting whole numbers needs to be developed. This number sense provides a foundation for understanding and remembering algorithms.
DigiBlocks at home
Continue to explore the base-ten system by making digiblock trains on the interactive website!
Students were very excited to earn their classroom goal of pajama and movie day. We integrated graphing and data collection throughout the day. Last time the students earned their class goal, we collected votes for the movie using tally marks and creating a bar graph. This time, we collected votes for the movie by creating a picture graph. Students worked in groups to analyze the data. We then created a life size "picture graph" on the rug of all the stuffed animals students brought in! As a class we created categories. Students worked independently to analyze the data of our real live graph!
Students thought it was hilarious to "trick" Ms. Schlank and put all of their stuffed animals on the teacher chair.
American Symbol Research
Students completed their cooperative grouping research on their American Symbols. By exploring authentic brochures (i.e. Dakin Farm, Caribbean Resort, Colgate, Library etc.) they were able to figure out the purpose of a brochure and its features . Students determined...
Purpose of a Brochure:
- To give the reader facts about something or someplace
- To give lots of information
Features of a Brochure:
-words and sentences
- photographs
- drawings
-headings
- title
-has flaps
- lists
- visually appealing
As students finished up their group research they are working independently to use their research to create their own brochures to inform a reader about their American Symbol. To provide students with a real and purposeful audience, we emailed Ms. Downes (the librarian) and asked her if we could display our brochures in the library for other people in the school to use to learn about American Symbols. Ms. Downes graciously accepted our offer! This informative writing is preparing students for insect research and report writing after vacation.
Students are also integrating everything they have learned about How-To Writing on the back of their brochures; one of the tasks is describe to the reader "How to See" the given American Symbol. From giving the distance from the airport to Mount Rushmore, to giving the address of the White House, to explaining various places in the community to see American Flags... Students are being extremely creative with their approach to this How-To Writing. They have truly become experts on their symbols and have done a fabulous job teaching the rest of us about their learnings!
We ended the week with a first grade sing along of Patriotic songs! "Fifty Nifty", a song helping us remember the 50 states can be viewed and practiced at home.
Habitat Frog
We were lucky to have the PTA funded, Habitat From program join us! They worked with students to explore life cycles and brought in real animals for us to observe.
Mystery Readers
Author's Chair
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