Week of October 12-16

This was a short week! Between no school on Monday, and myself out on Tuesday, it seemed to go by way too fast.

In reading, we are focusing on character traits and how authors demonstrate particular traits through the actions and words of a character. This is important in writing as well, and we have spent some time this week focusing on showing, not telling, with our words.

We are continuing multiplication in math, and this week we learned about area models.  We have also spent a couple of days learning how to create and use tables to solve problems.

This Friday, we logged onto to our online Social Studies book for the first time. Students seemed to enjoy reading about citizenship with the interactive text. This will be a great resource for us this year!

Also for social studies, we had two guest speakers related to our PBL. Unfortunately, I missed the first speaker on Tuesday, but was proud of how my class behaved on Wednesday when we learned about the Golden Cheeked Warbler and how they are endangered here in Texas.

We are wrapping up our unit on matter in science and did a great experiment with Mrs. Swyers' class. We used a great tool called Go Temp, which lets us connect a thermometer to a computer so that we can see a visual graph of temperature change. We began with a pot of ice, and applied het through a hot plate, and were able to watch a solid turn to a liquid (melting into water), and then change to a gas (evaporating as water vapor). The kids were excited to watch the temperature change from 32 degrees to over 200 degrees as it boiled!

Because of the smoke in the air from the Bastrop wildfires, we had indoor recess on Wednesday and Thursday. They had a good time making rubber band bracelets and playing board games.

Next week is the last week of our first grading period, so we will have assessments in reading, math and science. our next units include poetry for language arts, perimeter and time for math, and mixtures in science. We also have a fun visit planned with our kindergarten buddies on Tuesday. I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Week of October 5 - 9

In math, we have begun multiplication and are learning many different way to represent multiplication. Some of these include arrays, strip diagrams, equal groups, and on a number line. Having your child practice their multiplication facts at home is a great way to build fact fluency. 

Representing multiplication on a number line.

Representing multiplication with equal groups.

In science, we are continuing to learn about matter and have enjoyed several experiments / demonstrations. Students built boats out of foil, and worked on redesigning their boats so that they could float while holding up to 40 pennies. 

Planning and designing foil boats.

We examined three balloons filled with different forms of matter to learn about solids, liquids, and gases. And finally, we learned that applying heat to a solid can speed up the process of changing it to a liquid.

Gas

Liquid

Solid

In language arts, we are working on summarizing skills and identifying story elements.  Students read picture books with their reading partner and created a story map to identify the elements. 

We are also still working on our personal narratives. This week, our revising focus was on adding descriptive words (adjectives) and a strategy we call "Show, Don't Tell." Be sure to ask your child about my example of this. It was a funny moment in our classroom!

Please remember that there is no school on Monday. I will also be out on Tuesday for a funeral, but the kids are aware of my absence and I have scheduled a previous substitute to come back. They will be in great hands, and I look forward to seeing them on Wednesday!

Week of September 28 - October 2

It's hard to believe it's October already! This morning, I felt a slight chill in the air as I was walking into school. It almost felt like fall, but then the sun came up and we were quickly back to the hotter temperatures! I am sure ready for some cooler weather, and the kids are too for recess.

This week in language arts, we drafted our first personal narrative and began talking about how to make a lead that will hook our reader. We will work on revising our narratives next week, making them even better. We did an inferencing lesson with Mrs. Swyers class on Monday, as students examined photos related to habitat loss and discussed what they could infer from the photos. We continued our inferring by reading Chris Van Allsburg's book Just a Dream.

This week, we had a chance to read two Scholastic News issues, reading one of them online with their interactive version. The online version has some great features such as vocabulary words and a self-checking comprehension quiz.

Math has been busy this week as we wrapped up our place value study with a quiz on Monday. Then we continued learning subtraction strategies, reviewing on Thursday for a test on Friday over addition and subtraction. Just a reminder about our assessments this year...the district is providing all teachers with a 4 or 5 question assessment for each unit we teach that we are required to give. However, these tests cannot go home. Of course, you can always check your child's progress online through Home Access, so please check there frequently so that you can see how he/she is doing on classwork and tests.

New review strategy in math: students solve various word problems, then cover their work with a sticky note before rotating to another problem. 

Next, we came back into the room and students showed how they used different strategies to solve each problem.

In social studies, we are beginning a unit about citizenship and have been discussing what it means to be a good citizen. In science, we have begun a unit about matter. Students rotated through six different stations, exploring various properties of matter. On Friday, we used the laptops to work through an interactive vocabulary lesson and investigation about matter using Stemscopes.

Friday just flew by with our first spirit assembly of the year, a trip to the library to check out new books, a jazz performance after specials and the math test.

I hope you all have a great weekend, and I look forward to seeing everyone at conferences next week. I sent home reminder notes in Thursday folders, but you can also see the conference schedule online here.