What's Happening in Room 127? (March)

 March in Review

Here are some things we worked on in March:

Reading:  We spent time preparing for and taking the IAR assessments.  We also continued to work on our Character Studies unit.  We have been developing theories about our characters, working on the different elements of the plot of a story, looking at the challenges our characters face and how they react to those challenges, and the roles that secondary characters play in stories.  We have also been reading a second novel, Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel, and using this book to compare/contrast characters and themes to Because of Winn-Dixie.   The students have just started book clubs where they are reading a novel with a small group and working on practicing all of these skills.  

Writing:  In Writing we have just started an opinion writing unit.  Each child is working on a piece about something that they feel strongly about.  Each piece of writing must have a thesis that is "big and bold"!  They must have reasons and evidence to support their thesis, along with language to draw their audience into their writing, and transitions to help organize their writing.  We are building on many of the same skills that we worked on in the informational writing unit, but gearing it towards a different genre.

Math:  We are continuing our work with fractions.  We focused on unit fractions and their relationship to the whole.  They composed and decomposed wholes with unit and non-unit fractions by using number bonds and tape diagrams.  Students used tape diagrams to help compare fractions.  The tape diagrams help them with their reasoning to see how the size of the parts are different.  After the break we will be focusing on fractions on a number line.  Students will relate a fraction's value to its size, its location on a number line, and its distance from 0 to find pairs of equivalent fractions.

Science:  We have been having a lot of fun learning about weather!  In the first half of the unit we are focusing on the three components of weather:  temperature, wind, and precipitation.  After Spring Break we will be learning about how weather is predicted, how weather and climate are related, and different types of extreme weather.

Coming Up

Some of the things we will be working on in April are:

Health:  We will be continuing "Let's Eat!" for a little bit longer.  Our unit after that is titled "The Better to See You With".

Dates to Remember

March 25-April 1 - Spring Break

April 8 - Solar Eclipse (permission slips due 3/22)

April 23 - Field Trip

What's Happening in Room 127? (February)

 February in Review

Here are some of the things we've been working on this month:

 

Reading:  We started a new unit called Character Studies.  With this unit we are working on diving deeper into our reading to look at the characters and use evidence to support our ideas and theories that we have about them.  We also are going to be looking at the structure of a story and how a character can go up and down a story mountain.  We are reading aloud the novel Because of Winn-Dixie and are using the main character of Opal to practice this work.  

 

Writing:  In Writing we have completed the literary essay unit.   When writing a literary essay the children need to name the story they are writing about, state their opinion or thesis, give evidence from the story by using exact quotes or summarizing parts of the story, use transitional phrases to lead into the evidence, and explain why their evidence matters.  We have been continuing to write written responses to prepare for IAR testing that March 11th.  Written responses for IAR are very similar to literary essays.  The main difference is that the kids have to answer a specific question with multiple parts rather than just supporting their own opinion.  We have been working on writing checklists before we write our response to help make sure that we have all of the parts of the question included in our writing.

 

Math:  We completed a unit on area. In this unit we explored the attributes of squares, rectangles, and trapezoids, tiled rectangles and squares to related the side lengths to area, used multiplication to find the area of rectangles, decomposed to find the total area of a rectangle, and found the area of composite figures. We are now just beginning fractions. Within this unit we will be working on partitioning a whole into equal parts, taking unit fractions and understanding their relationship to the whole, identifying fractions on a number line, finding equivalent fractions, and comparing fractions.

 

Social Studies:  Our current unit is about economics. The focus is for the students to understand what a free market economy is, supply and demand, how and why people save money, and global trade. We played some fun games during this unit to help the students understand the concept of supply and demand and global trade!

 

Coming Up

Some of the things that we will be working on in March are:

Writing: When IAR testing is completed we will begin an opinion writing unit.

Science:  We will be starting a new unit about weather.  In the first half of the unit we will focus on the three components of weather:  temperature, wind, and precipitation. 

 

Health:  “Let's Eat!" is the title of our next health unit.

Dates to Remember:
March 8 - Records/Planning Day--No School

March 8 - Trimester 2 Ends

March 11-15 - IAR Testing

March 25-April 1- Spring Break

What's Happening in Room? (January)

 January in Review

Here are some things we've been working on this month:

Reading:  We continued and wrapped up our mystery unit.  We worked on identifying clues and motives for different suspects as we were reading our mysteries.  (Really looking closely at our reading to pay attention to these types of things.)  We also learned about red herring clues, which is when an author tries to trick the reader and the crime solver with a clue that throws us off track.  To wrap up this unit we learned that the skills that we use when reading mysteries also help us when we are reading any type of fiction book. 

 

Writing:  In Writing we have been working on the "Baby Literary Essay" unit.  With this unit we are working on identifying and supporting our opinions about texts.  When writing a literary essay the children need to name the story they are writing about, state their opinion or thesis, give evidence from the story by using exact quotes or summarizing parts of the story, use transitional phrases to lead into the evidence, and explain why their evidence matters.  We are now going to be adding introductions and conclusions to these essays.  During our word study we continued to work with different vowel combinations and the different sounds that they make such as the combinations that make the "aw", "ow", and "oy" sounds.  

Social Studies:  We are working on our second unit "History".  With this unit we learned about why people have come to settle in the United States from other countries.  We also spent a lot of time learning about how all of our cultures are unique.  We learned about different languages, holidays, traditions, and foods that communities share.  As part of this unit we learned about different individuals who worked to make their community better.  In groups the students read about one individual and created a human monument that represented the work that this person did.  They also created a plaque describing what the monument shows and how this person helped their community.  You be able to see pictures of these monuments at Open House!

Math:  In module 3 we are continuing to focus on multiplication and division.  We are focusing on the facts for 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 and 1. We have been using the distributive property and regrouping factors using the associative property to help with multiplying.  We have been solving one and two step word problems and recognizing patterns in input-output tables.  It is very important that students keep practicing their multiplication and division facts!  

Coming Up

Some of the things we will be working on in February are:

Reading:  We are beginning a new unit called "Character Studies".  We are focusing back on fiction reading and will be learning more about the theme of stories, plot, and comparing/contrasting characters.

Social Studies:  Our next unit will be about economics.  

Health:  "I Like Your Attitude" is the title of our next health unit.

Dates to Remember:
Feb. 15 - Open House

Feb. 16 - Staff Development Day--No School

Feb. 19 - President's Day--No School

What's Happening in Room 127? (December)

 December in Review

Here are some of the things we've been working on this month:

Reading:  We wrapped up our nonfiction unit and have just started a mystery unit, which the students and I are all really enjoying!  With this unit we are learning about the mystery genre and how mystery books tend to go.  We also are working on making our prediction and summarizing skills more secure.

Writing:  In Writing we have just finished publishing our informational books.  I'm so impressed by the knowledge that the students have about their topics!  They will be sharing these with you shortly. We also did some seasonal writing and work with nouns.  During our word study we continued to work with different vowel combinations and the different sounds that they make such as oo, ou, ui, and u.

Science:  We studied forces and motion.  During this unit we worked on identifying the position and motion of forces, balanced vs. unbalanced forces, we measured patterns of motion to make predictions of future motion, we learned about bar magnets and electromagnets, and we studied static electricity.  The students completed a STEM challenge where given only certain materials (magnet, paperclip tied to a string, masking tape, cups of different sizes, and popsicle sticks) they needed to design and build a structure that would allow a paperclip to float in the air, against the pull of gravity. They also created electromagnets.

Math:  In module 3 we are back to focusing on multiplication and division.  We are focusing on the facts for 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 and 1.  With this, we are working a lot on using the distributive property (or breaking apart method as we sometimes call it) to help break a harder multiplication problem into two simpler problems that are easier for us to solve.  This will be helpful for students when they face a problem that they don't know the answer to, instead of drawing arrays and equal groups.

Coming Up
Some of the things that we will be working on in January are:

Reading/Writing:  We will be continuing our mystery unit and will be starting a unit on literary essays.

Math:  We will be continuing with multiplication and division.

Health:  Our next unit is called, "Things You Might Catch".

What's Happening in Room 127? (November)

 November in Review

Here are some of the things we've been working on this month:

Reading:  We have been continuing to work on reading nonfiction text.  We have transitioned from reading expository nonfiction to reading narrative nonfiction, such as biographies.  We worked on reading this type of nonfiction from two different lenses.  One is reading it as a story--there are characters, a setting, problems, and solutions.  The other lens is reading the story to learn information.

Writing:  In writing we have been working on informational writing.  Students are writing books on a topic that they are experts on.  The first part of our unit focused on organizing our books with a table of contents and then organizing each chapter.  The structure that we are using for this organization is called "boxes and bullets".  The "box" is the subtopic that is being written about.  The "bullets" are the supporting details that you are going to be writing about to further develop the subtopic.  Now we are working on drafting our chapters, elaborating on the information, adding text features, and editing.  We hope to finish up our books in the next couple of weeks.  We also worked on simple and compound sentences.  During our word study we worked on different long vowel letter combinations such as long o and long a.  We've also been working with words with the "ew" sound spelled ew and u_e.

Social Studies:  We completed our first unit on geography.  During this unit students learned:  the location of the continents and oceans, how to use cardinal/intermediate directions to describe the location of different places, ways people adapt to different environments based on geography and climate, how the Native Americans adapted to the environment long ago.  

Math:  We spent November working with different strategies to add and subtract larger numbers.  We have been working with different ways you can manipulate numbers to do these operations, along with the standard vertical form.  The idea is that students will be more comfortable in working with numbers and be able to choose a strategy that they feel comfortable with using.

Second Step:  Our Second Step curriculum, along with our school theme, has been focusing on feelings.  We have been working on identifying our own and other's feelings.

Coming Up
Some of the things that we will be working on in December are:

Reading:  We will soon be wrapping up our nonfiction unit and will begin a mystery unit.

Science:  We are moving back into science.  Our science unit is on forces and motion.

Health:  Our next unit is called, "Community Health".

Dates to Remember:
Dec. 4 - MAP Testing

Dec. 7 - MAP Testing
Dec. 23-Jan. 7 - Winter Break

What's Happening in Room 127? (October)

 October in Review

Here are some of the things we've been working on this month:

Reading:  We completed our first reading unit, "Building a Reading Life".  In this unit we focused on identifying character traits and supporting it with evidence, making a prediction with support, retelling what you've read, and author's craft (putting yourself in the author's shoes).  We will continue to be working on these skills throughout the year.  Next, we are working on a nonfiction reading unit.

Throughout the first part of the unit we are focusing on reading expository nonfiction texts.  We are learning that when reading we need to be looking out for the main idea and supporting details.  Sometimes there are headings to help us with this, but other times we need to look for "pop-out" sentences.  We are using "boxes and bullets" to help us organize the information that we are learning as we read. 

Writing:  In Writing we finished writing our personal narratives (or "small moments" as we've been calling them).  We spent a lot of time revising our writing.  We worked on developing leads and the closing to the stories.  We also worked on developing the "heart" of the story and telling this part bit by bit.  During our word study we worked on vowel-consonant-silent e, vowel teams, double ending consonants, digraphs, consonants that represent two or more different sounds at the end of words, and ending consonant clusters.

Math:  We completed our multiplication and division unit.  We will be revisiting more multiplication and division skills in future modules.  We began our second module which is called "Place Value Concepts Through Metric Measurement".  We have estimated and measured weight and liquid volume by using grams, kilograms, liters, and milliliters.  We also read temperatures on a thermometer, which provided an initial context to rounding to the nearest ten or hundred.  The students used a vertical number line to round numbers and apply their rounding skills to estimate sums and differences.

Social Studies:  We started our first unit on geography.  With this we have been working with different vocabulary such as hemispheres, equator, and continents.  In small groups the students created their own globes and needed to correctly label and place the continents and oceans.  We also have been working on map skills such as using cardinal/intermediate directions to describe the location of different places.

Second Step:  This is what we've been working on in Second Step:

1. We have been continuing to talk about positive and negative self talk.  With this we have been focusing on growth mindset.  
2. We talked about being assertive.
3. Our school theme has been understanding differences.  We have talked about how we all are different in many ways.  We talked about what the word "understanding" means and characteristics of people who are understanding.

Coming Up
Some of the things that we will be working on in November are:

Reading:  We will continue to work on the nonfiction unit.

Writing:  Information writing will be our focus.

Math:  In future topics within this module we will be exploring a variety of addition and subtraction strategies.

Health:  The next unit is "My Family, Your Family".


Dates to Remember:

Nov. 20-24--No School

What's Happening in Room 127? (September)

 September in Review

At the end/beginning of every month I will send out a newsletter to let you know what has been going on in Room 127, and what will be coming up.

Reading:  This month we have been working on our first reading unit called "Building a Reading Life".  During this unit we have been practicing giving ourselves comprehension checks as we are reading, making movies in our minds to help us envision what we are reading, and making predictions using evidence from the text to support our ideas.  When students are giving themselves a comprehension check they are asking themselves what happened, who was in that part, and is it new information or does it connect to something else in the story?  If students can't answer these questions they need to go back and reread that section/chapter.  This is an extremely important skill!

Writing:    In Writing we have been working on our personal narratives by writing about a "small moment" that happened in our lives.  We are using a mentor text called Come on Rain! to write leads, telling our stories bit by bit, writing dialogue, and using vivid language.  We are also working on the fact that our story has to have three parts:  a beginning, middle, and end.  Revisions and editing work are also a part of this unit.  During our word study we have been reviewing consonant clusters (blends) where we hear a sound that is connected to each of the letters, digraphs where two letters represent one sound (th, ch, sh, wh), and short vowels.

Science:  Our first science unit is called "Environments and Living Things".  During this unit we have been reading and completing investigations to understand why some animals survive better in certain habitats, why some live in groups and others live alone, and why plants and animals change when the environment changes.  We are also learning about fossils and seeing what information the fossil can tell us about the organism from long ago.

Math:  We have been working on multiplication and division with units of 2, 3, 4, 5, and 10.  To start, we worked on the conceptual understanding of multiplication and division.  We then moved into understanding the properties of multiplication.  To explore the commutative property we skip-counted the rows and columns in arrays.  We used arrays and number bonds to model the distributive property when finding the products of unfamiliar facts.  Currently we are working on two interpretations of division to help solidify students' understanding of the relationship between multiplication and division and show division as both unknown factors problems and division equations.  Next week we will move into the last part of the unit by working with the associative property of multiplication and solving two-step word problems using multiplication and division.

Second Step:  Each week we work with a social/emotional program called Second Step.  In August/September we have had three different areas that we have been working on.

1. We talked about being respectful learners and learning how to focus our attention.  
2. We are learning about was using self-talk.  Self-talk can also help us focus, but we can also use it to help manage our emotions especially in situations that may be difficult or frustrating for us.  
3. We also started talking about growth mindset.

Coming Up

Social Studies:  In the coming weeks we will be starting our first social studies unit which will focus on geography.

Math:  We will be wrapping up our first math unit in October.  Our next math unit is working on place value concepts through metric measurement.

Health:   Our next health unit is titled, "When Bodies Have Challenges".

Take Note:  

*Please take a look at your child's learning log each week.  It is on a half sheet of paper, and it is brought home every Friday.  This is a reflection of their week in school.

*Everyday students make a goal for what page they will read to in their book that evening.  We have talked about making realistic yet challenging goals.  Each child is expected to read at least 15-20 minutes a day Monday-Thursday, and at least one time over the weekend.  I monitor each child's progress with their independent reading as it is an important part of our reading program.

Dates to Remember:

October 9 - No School
October 17, 24, 26 - Conferences