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The children worked hard this week. Look at all they accomplished!

Literacy 

This week, our close reading lessons focused on two books, Duck For President and Grace For President. After, reading each story, the students completed a character wheel for each of the main characters, Duck and Grace. The children identified character traits (what the character says, does, and feels) of each character. They provided evidence from the text to support each character trait that they listed on their wheel. At the end of the week, we reviewed each of the books and the children compared and contrasted the two main characters. They had wonderful turn and talk conversations to support their ideas about why the characters were similar and different. The children concluded the lesson by filling out a double bubble map about the two main characters, Duck and Grace.

Grammar Notebooks

This week, the children were introduced to verbs. They learned that a verb is a word that shows action. The children enjoyed playing a game of Verb Charades to introduce them to different verbs. It was a great kinesthetic exercise and helped the children make the connection that verbs are action words. 

Writing

This week, the children were hard at work publishing their How-To pieces. Using the app Storykit on their iPads they typed their How-To piece, each step was typed on a new page. The children used the art tools within the app to illustrate a few of their pages. On Friday, we took photos of the children acting out each of their How-To steps. The children inserted their photos into their How-To pages. The children completed their How-To publications today! I will post them to the blog soon! 

Math 

This week, the children were introduced to the symbols for greater than (>) and less than (<). They compared and recorded whole numbers using <,>, and =. The children enjoyed playing Top-It with Relation Symbols (<,>, and =).

On Tuesday, the children had math explorations, they explored area, created more than and less than number models, played Base 10 Exchange, and practiced their addition math facts on the iPad. 

On Wednesday and Thursday, the children worked with base-10 blocks to model 2- and 3-digit numbers. They used their base-10 blocks to find sums of 2- and 3-digit numbers. Then, they compared pairs of 2-digit numbers and wrote number models using > and <.

The children worked hard this week on building their fact power. They completed their first two Gumball Math assessments. The children will always bring home their assessments the day after they take them and have had a chance to graph their results. They may complete the problems they did not finish at home to practice their addition facts. Each time the children earn a 48, 49, or 50 they will move on to the next level.  

Science

This week, we concluded our science unit on magnets. The scientists really enjoyed investigating what happens when two magnets interact. They discovered that magnets can push (repel) as well as pull (attract) other magnets. The scientists recorded their observations in their science journal.

Today, the scientists enjoyed watching a short movie on Magnets. They completed the unit by reviewing their magnet knowledge and sharing their favorite parts from the experiments.

Groundhog Day

Today, the children listened to the book, Groundhog Day.

Then, they made predictions on whether the groundhog will see his shadow or not. We graphed our predictions and it turns out 15 children think the groundhog will not see his shadow and 5 children think he will see his shadow. What will it be, six more weeks of winter or an early spring? On Monday, we will look back at our graph and see which children made the correct prediction. Your child can share what they learned this weekend about the groundhog and his shadow!

Star Student

Brooke was our star student this week. Thanks Brooke for sharing all about you!

Royal Reader

A special thank you to Brooke’s Mom, she joined us this week as our Royal Reader. The children enjoyed listening to the two stories that Mrs. Neri read, You Are Special and Sanji’s Seed!

Notes:

-On February 13th, we will celebrate Valentine’s Day. The children will have a short party at the end of the day to celebrate. Your child brought home a pink note today about bringing in valentines for their classmates. 

-February 11th is 100th Day. I can’t believe we have almost been in school for 100 days! Be on the lookout for a note about 100th Day. It will come home in your child’s red folder by the end of next week!

-We are desperately in need of glue sticks. Please send in a couple if you can! Thank you :)

Have a great weekend!