This week our reading strategy was focused on how characters change throughout a story. Sometimes characters feelings and personalities change and other times they might change physically and even further than that we read a story where a mouse did not know anything about spring at the beginning of the book and his knowledge changed by the end. He had learned all about spring! Identifying and understanding the main literary elements of a story such as character, setting, plot, and problem/resolution gives readers a process for storing information to remember and to comprehend what the story is about. This knowledge will also help students as they are writing stories.
Why do we teach specific elements of a story all together and other times in isolation? Literary elements work together to form and enhance the story. We learn literary elements separately, and then combine them in our mind for better understanding of the story.
Our focus vocabulary word this week was the word "idea". We used an app called Balloon Stickies Plus and took pictures of ourselves and/or our writing partner. We added a thought bubble to the picture using the app and wrote in an idea we might have or we might be thinking about during that picture. Examples are below. It was such a fun and easy app to use, we will definitely be using this app again!
Math:
Our math vocabulary focus this week were the words "most and least". We talked about what these words mean and then put an entry into our math journals using those two words.
Throughout the rest of the week, we reviewed and focused on addition and subtraction. We compared the two different math skills and talked about what they have in common and what makes them different. We practiced both types of problems and are working really hard on using mental math to solve addition and subtraction problems under 5 without any math tools, number lines or even our fingers!
Writing:
We finished up our second writing unit this week! We took our post-test on informational writing and I could not be any prouder of each students final writing piece. I will be showing each of you their final piece at parent/teacher conferences this week. Be sure to scan the QR code next to your child's picture out in the hallway to see, read and listen to other informational writing books they completed with a partner and individually using Book Creator. They really are smart cookies writing to teach others about things they are experts in! We also took a pre-test for our next writing unit...Opinion Writing. We will officially begin opinion writing when we return from spring break.
Other writing news...we used one of our new favorite programs Pebble Go this week to learn even more facts about weather that we may or may not have already known. We are working with a partner to learn about specific types of weather and will put our facts into an app called Shadow Puppet EDU next week. An example of one we created as a class is below. Students will create their own with their partner and their own facts that they learned next week!
Content:
This week has been all about weather! We study weather for two weeks b/c there are so many exciting things to learn when it comes to weather. We started the week off by creating a class Popplet using emoji's from the iPad keyboard to help show off things we already know about weather. We continued the week by learning about different types of clouds and creating a flip book showing a weather word and then drawing a picture that goes with that word. We will continue next week by completing a creative writing and a few other weather related items!
PRACTICE AT HOME:
Practice mental math by having your child envision a number line or math tools and add and subtract numbers under 5. For example, tell your child 3+1=?? or 4-1=?? and only focus on numbers adding and subtracting under 5. See if they can solve the problem without using their fingers or any other tools to get the correct answer.
Next Week:
- In reading we will focus on comparing and contrasting.
- In writing we will continue weather reports.
- In math we will learn about addition stories.
- Our theme next week is all about WEATHER!
Important Dates/Information:
- 3/15 and 3/17 Parent/Teacher Conferences--please return the day/time green paper I sent home confirming your conference
- 3/18 3rd Nine Weeks Awards Ceremony 2:00PM
- 3/ 21-3/25 NO SCHOOL SPRING BREAK
- 4/8 Spring Pictures
- 4/29 Spring Carnival
- 5/5 Muffins for Mom
- 5/10 Field Trip to Indy Zoo
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