News You Can Use!

Enjoy catching up on what we've been up to for the last two weeks!

Literacy 

This week, our close reading lessons focused on two books, What’s Alive? and Incredible Insects. During our reading of What’s Alive? the children completed a Top Hat organizer. They listed characteristics of plants and animals they heard during the story. Then, the children listed the similarities of plants and animals at the bottom of their organizer. As the children listened to the book, Incredible Insects, they focused on identifying nonfiction text features. The children had discussions on what they learned from the different text features as well as, why they thought the author included that feature in the text. 

Contraction Surgery

On the Friday before Spring Break, the children became doctors and performed Contraction Surgery. They took different two word combinations and turned them into their contraction form. After cutting the two words apart they put them back together with a bandaid (apostrophe). What a great kinesthetic exercise to help them understand the process of turning two words into their short form (contractions). 

Writing

During the week before Spring Break, the children completed their research on penguins. The children organized their Post-It notes from their Penguin Stop & Jot Notebook into different categories (ex: Food, Babies, Predators, Penguin Movements, etc). They used these categories and their Post-It note facts to write a nonfiction book about penguins. Their nonfiction penguin books include a detailed cover, a table of contents, pages with headings that correlate with the topic, a glossary, and an About The Author page. The children have worked very hard and I am proud to display their hard work in the hallway.

This week, we started our new writing unit, Expository Writing. The children worked with identifying a fiction and a nonfiction sentence as I read two books about wolves, The True Story of The Three Little Pigs and Wolves. They discussed the differences and similarities between fiction and nonfiction texts. As the unit continues the children will practice researching and recording facts about animals. They will complete the unit by writing a nonfiction book on an animal of their choice.

Math 

We have been very busy in math. The children enjoyed another round of Math Review Mimio Vote. They reviewed all of the concepts they learned during Unit 6. Our room once again turned into the set of a game show as each child answered questions using their very own clicker. The children took their Unit 6 test. I am proud of how well the children did on their tests! 

Before Spring Break, we started Unit 7. In this unit the children are working with Geometry and Attributes. They worked to sort attribute blocks according to different attribute rules (color, shape, and size). The children enjoyed Explorations, they worked with Exploring Attributes, played Make My Design, and practiced their math facts.

This week, the children identified pattern block shapes. They counted the number of sides a triangle has and learned that a corner is a point where two sides meet. The children discussed defining attributes and non-defining attributes of triangles. They were also introduced to the term polygon (a shape with all straight side that touch only at their endpoints).

On Tuesday, the children enjoyed using straws and twist ties to create different polygon shapes. They identified their polygons sides and corners. 

On Wednesday and Thursday, the children were introduced to 6 geometric shapes: Spheres, Cylinders, Rectangular Prisms, Cones, Cubes, and Pyramids. They identified and described the solid figures. The children worked with counting the number of flat faces and corners of each of the shapes. The children created cylinders using paper. We also started a Shapes Museum in our classroom, the children may continue to bring in geometric shapes to add to our Shapes Museum. 

Science

This week, we started our last science unit, Collecting and Examining Life. On Monday, the scientists did their first experiment. They had to look at three different substances, mystery substance A, mystery substance B, and salt. Using a magnifying glass they observed the substances and decided which one they thought was alive. After creating their hypothesis, the scientists added the salt to water creating a salt water solution. In one jar they placed substance A and the salt water. In another jar they placed substance B and salt water. The scientists observed the solutions in the jars and recorded what they saw in their science notebooks. They conferred with other scientists at their table and decided that they thought jar B held the live contents. 

On Tuesday, the scientists returned to their jars. They were able to use the pro-scopes to magnify the contents of each jar. The scientists realized the substance A was alive. The children had hatched Brine Shrimp. They were able to see them swimming around. They noted that substance B was not moving and it had all settled on the bottom, they learned that the substance was sand. 

On Wednesday, the scientists were very excited to study Crickets. They began by studying a diagram of a Cricket and discussing the different body parts. After learning all the body parts, the scientists took turns coming up to the board and labeling the body parts on a picture of a Cricket. Then the scientists worked with a partner to observe their very own Cricket. Using a magnifying box and ruler, the scientists recorded information about their Cricket. They worked very hard and drew descriptive diagrams, making sure to label the parts of their Cricket. Some of the scientists even wrote down a page worth of notes on what they learned from observing their cricket.

Penguin Day

On the Friday before Spring Break, the children enjoyed a Penguin Day celebration in honor of their hard work during our Penguin Unit. The children dressed in all black and white or blue and white like a penguin. We also got to do some fun penguin themed activities and watch a penguin movie!

Star Student

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

Royal Reader

A special thank you to Danny’s parents, they joined us this week as our Royal Readers. The children enjoyed listening to the two stories that Mr. and Mrs. Centracchio read, Let’s Go, Bears! and Dog Breath The Horrible Trouble With Hally Tosis.

I hope you had a wonderful Weekend!