Week in Review--Insects (Week One)

Reading:

Our CAFE strategy this week was focused on VISUALIZE, students practiced visualizing or imagining the story as we would read this week. The Visualize Strategy involves creating a vivid image in your mind based on what you read. Visualizations can include sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings—anything that makes the scene more real. Visualizing brings the text to life. Rather than just using words, you can engage your imagination and all of your senses. When you visualize, you gain insight into the experiences of the people you read about; placing yourself in someone else's perspective helps you empathize with his or her emotions. Also, visualizing important moments in the text helps you remember them later.

How can you help your child with this strategy at home?

1. Stop at key points while you're reading and create a picture, movie, or sound clip in your mind about what you just read.
2. You could visualize one moment in time, or you could visualize a sequence of events. Sometimes it's helpful to imagine that you're inside the scene described in the text.
3. You might take the perspective of a character in a story or an historical figure in a nonfiction text. You might imagine the same scene from more than one perspective. Whichever perspective you choose, close your eyes and imagine the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings. The more vivid you make your visualization, the more real it will feel.

 

 

Our vocabulary words this week were:

• Shrink
• Hatch
• Bank
• Gills
• Stared
• Tadpole

For our Thursday review lesson we took three of our words and used the camera tool app on our iPads to record ourselves saying the word, the definition and acting out the word! We then put the videos together using iMovie as a class!

 

iPad Fun:

Reading

• Our iPad choices this week consisted of listening to videos about an insect of our choosing using Pebble Go and then saving a picture from the website to our camera roll and opening the picture up into another app called ChatterKid. We used this app to have our insect talk and share at least one fact we learned about the insect from watching the videos!
• We used another favorite app this week called Popplet! We created word family Popplets this week! So much fun!
• As always, we had Reading Eggs, QR listening books and Epic! as the other choices when we completed our first tasks!

 

Math

• This week we continued our Math Journals with the vocabulary word “total” and completing one entry of Number of the Day.
• We also worked on scanning QR codes that gave us a subtraction problem and then opened up the app DoodleBuddy to complete the subtraction problem by writing the equation and using the stamp tool to help solve!
• We used QR codes that scanned to show a number and we filled that number in on a ten frame and then after all ten frames were completed, we checked the back of the paper to see if we filled them in correctly!
• We also had the choice from a previous week to complete tens/ones using the Number Pieces app and scanning QR codes to reveal the number

 

 

Writing:

We started our final writing unit this week! This last unit is all about Opinion Writing! We started the week off by learning and reviewing the difference between a fact and an opinion and then we continued to practice telling our opinion to each other. We used an app called Decide Now and discussed with a partner which topic that was chosen on the spinner app that we would rather do this weekend. We discussed that even if we liked both ideas, we have to pick which one, in our opinion, would be the one we would rather do this weekend. We had so much fun!

We continued our learning about the steps to write an opinion piece by using the idea of an Oreo cookie. The top of the Oreo helps us to remember to write the “O” or the opinion, the “R” stands for reason, “E” for an example and “O” to restate our opinion at the end. Our first opinion writing task was to write an opinion piece as a class and try to convince me to bring them Oreos to eat in class the next day. Well, as you can see...it worked! They did such a great job giving me a reason and an example of why Oreos are oh so yummy I couldn't resist and I brought them Oreos!

The rest of the week we practiced as a group filling in the planning page and then transferring our writing to our official opinion writing page! Next week students will begin writing opinions on their own!

Math:

We reviewed addition stories this week and learned about subtraction stories too! We practiced them as a group and with partners before putting a choice into Math with Someone where we roll a dice to give us two numbers to either help in our story problem by adding or subtracting with those numbers!

Our vocabulary word this week was the word “total”. We talked about how the answer to an addition or a subtraction sentence is the total or the final number you have. Total is a word that we can use when we are saying or story problems and even when we are doing other math problems.

Content:

This week was all about bugs and insects! We have had fun learning the difference between a bug and an insect!

• Monday we completed a Popplet to go share things we know and we learned about insects after watching a video that explained important facts about what makes an insect!
• Tuesday, we created our cover for our Butterfly Observation Journal using our iPad and the app Book Creator.
• Wednesday, we read a few bug vs. insect stories!
• Thursday, our classroom caterpillars arrived! We completed our very first observation of our caterpillars today. We found that there were five caterpillars in our jar and they were pretty tiny! Two of the caterpillars were at the very top of the jar trying to escape! We wrote the date and illustrated our first observation in our journals! We are excited to continue to watch them grow and change!
• Friday, we completed a chart reviewing the important facts about what makes an insect and then took those facts and built our own insects!

Below are SEVERAL pictures and video from our fun filled week!

 



 

 

 

 

PRACTICE AT HOME:

Go on an insect hunt! See if you can tell the difference if the creature you find is an insect or a bug!

Next Week:

• In reading we will focus on Cross Checking
• In writing we will continue our third unit Opinion Writing.
• In math we will continue to learn about ways to make the number 10.
• Our theme next week is all about INSECTS!

  
Important Dates/Information:

• 4/8 Spring Pictures
• 4/29 Spring Carnival
• 5/5 Muffins for Mom
• 5/10 Field Trip to Indy Zoo