April 4-8
The Buzz in Room 615!
Last Week
Writing - We worked on our NF books some more, and have made some significant progress. Special thanks to Mrs. Franks for coming in one morning to help us out!
Reading - Most of our reading time was spent writing, or doing Easter-related activities during our party day.
Math - We practiced counting to 100 and discussing a 0-99 chart and the patterns we saw on there. It is basically a 100s chart, but when you start it with a 0 instead of a 1, it is much easier to see patterns as far as place value and number sequence goes. I challenged some small groups by holding up a number and having them immediately either give me one more, one less, ten more, or ten less. Some students were even up for the challenge of 20 more or 20 less!
Science - We planted our peas and got to observe them a little bit last week. Otherwise, not a ton of science or social studies got done. We'll fix that when we get back! :)
Easter Party - Our Easter/Spring celebration on Tuesday was so much fun! The day consisted of Easter-themed literacy and math stations, an egg hunt, an outdoor picnic, and watching Peter Cottontail in the afternoon. Two favorite stations involved plastic easter eggs: in one, the students had to twist the two halves of the eggs, which had onsets and rimes on them, to read and then write down the words they formed. (Here's a website on onsets and rimes for those who want to learn a little more about the details of onsets and rime and their importance: http://www.readingfirst.virginia.edu/prof_dev/phonemic_awareness/ri_phoneme.html ). Another egg station had all of the eggs split in halves, some with sums/differences on them, and some with addition/subtraction problems on them. As a group, they had to work together to match them all up. They did so well!
Check out the pictures from our Easter Egg relay races below. Thanks to Mrs. Veronesi for helping keep us under control during this time. :)
Looking Forward
The Week Ahead
Reading - The focus over the next few weeks, as we begin a new reading unit, will be on reading strategies, fluency, and prosody. This week we'll learn and practice some tips and tricks for reading unknown words.
Math - we just began to touch on our new math unit before break, but this week will be really getting into place value! We'll start by breaking down the teen numbers by figuring out exactly what goes into a teen number, setting the foundation for the rest of the numbers and their place values up to 100. I'll continue to do my best to challenge every student in this area, no matter what level of understanding they're currently at!
Science/Social Studies - Weather will continue this week with a few science experiments and writings about what we are learning and observing.
Reminders/Miscellaneous
We will be having our Arts Council field trip as soon as we get back on Monday, April 4th. Please pack a disposable lunch or send a note to request a bagged lunch from the cafeteria. Also, students should wear their green class shirts! If you do not have one, a light/mint green shirt will work well.
2. LifeTouch Pictures
April 6th will be the individual lifetouch pictures. If you want to order some, a paper went home for you to choose your child's pose. No money needs sent in with that form.