September 10-14, 2018

Writing- Continued working on personal narratives. We talked about adding sensory details, writing satisfying endings that wrap up the story, and including inside thoughts and feelings.

Reading- Discussed how readers make mental pictures in their mind while reading and making predictions. Plus, our brand new book boxes came in and everyone was SO excited! They were even excited about the cardboard the boxes came in- so sorry if your child came home with some recycling! Today we personalized the inserts in the bookboxes and transferred books. Thank you so much to everyone who donated! Today, we read the Bluebonnet Book Grandpa's Ha-la-loo-ya Hambone! and almost every single student took passed the bluebonnet quiz! Keep encouraging your kids to read those amazing books. Students were also excited to read with a flashlight and a stuffed animal, which was the class reward.

Math- We started our unit on addition with estimation. Then, students learned about some different strategies for addition, including compensation, separating into ones, tens, and hundreds, and using jumps on an open number line. We explored these different strategies using base ten blocks.

Science- I presented students with a challenge: designed and built a foil boat that can hold 20+ pennies and do a complete circle with only the use of a magnetic wand. Then, they tested to see if their boat by adding 1 penny at a time. Some boats had great success! This elicited some interesting discussions on sink/ float and density.

On Wednesday, students explored magnetism and were so fascinated by some of their findings, which they recorded in their science notebook.

ESOT- Today was international dot day! We started by reading The Dot by Peter Reynolds, one of my favorite growth mindset books. Then students creatively thought about all the different ways to see a dot. They went to different stations like the morse code and braille station, aboriginal hand art station, dot tree, turn one dot into something, and more. It was tons of fun and I know they were all able to see dots in a different way!

Coming up next week:

Writing- Begin editing and revising draft of personal narratives. Introduce spelling work.

Reading- Continue building as readers through fiction.

Math- Estimating with subtraction and introduce subtraction strategies

Science- Begin unit 2 on changes of matter from heat, and mixtures

Social Studies- More on the 3 branches of government