Week in Review--Pilgrims and Native Americans

Reading:

In reading this week we focused on the CAFE strategy “Respond to Questions”. Learning to ask and answer questions throughout the reading of a story is an important strategy because it teaches the reader to think aloud. It helps the reader review important points in the text, evaluate and refine predictions. The most effective way to teach this strategy is through modeling the questioning process while reading aloud to your child. We read several Thanksgiving, Pilgrim and Native American books this week. We read books that were reality and a few that were fantasy as well. It is important to read a variety of reading material where your child can practice this strategy.

Our sight words this week were "are" and "now". We made pirate hats on Monday to kick off learning the sight word "arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre". So much fun!










We used the app Popplet to create "popples" of words in our -at word family. By the end of the week we were creating -at and -ot words!

 
Another way we practice our word families is by searching for those words in a word search on "Word Search Wednesday"!




We had a new word work choice this week called "Rainbow Writing". Students roll a dice to figure out what color of marker to use to write a sight word and then write the word in that color on the recording sheet. After they write the word, they roll the dice again and write a new word in a new color! By the end, the page is very colorful....like a rainbow!


Our vocabulary review lesson this week, we focused on the word "community". Students took a video of their iPad partner saying their definition of the word community and then they sent it to me in the app Showbie!






Here are a few videos of students explaining their definition of the vocabulary word community.

Our poem of the week!

Math:

This week in math we wrote in our math journals using the app Book Creator and practiced addition using math tools, number line and mental math! We practiced Monday and Tuesday this week adding our math writing vocabulary word "triangle" to our math journals and practicing an activity called number of the day that we do every day, but adding it into our iPad math journals. We take a picture of the vocabulary word or the dice and then write all about the word or number. After we are finished, students use the record option within the app to record telling me what they did and their review of their journal entry. This week we worked with a partner in case we had questions or forgot a step. I am hoping for students to complete these two activities independently in the next couple of weeks. I will post a video of a few students reviewing their entry next week!



Math vocabulary writing example.

Number of the day example.

Practicing addition using a number line!

 



Writing:
We continued studying and writing our True Stories this week. We started the week off by first practicing writing with meatball and noodle spaces and then moved to creating a chart of topics that we could write about that would be a true story from our lives. After each student finished a book, they can go get a new book to start! On Friday, we chose our favorite book that we wrote throughout the week and published the book in Book Creator. I posted a few videos of those published books below.

Content:

We are gearing up for Thanksgiving and learned about Pilgrims and Native Americans this week. We focused the beginning of the week on Pilgrims, then moved to learning about Native Americans and finished the week comparing both, as well as discussing the differences between their lives then and our lives now!



















Other:

The class earned their last "warm fuzzy" in the jar this week! We pulled a prize out of the prize package and the class earned to bring a stuffed animal from home to school for the entire day! There is a video below showing the students dancing along with their animals to the Freeze Dance!

 

 

PRACTICE AT HOME:

Have your child explain differences and similarities from the way the Pilgrims and Native Americans lived to how we live today!

 

Next Week:

• In reading we will review previous learned CAFE Strategies, sight words and word families.
• In writing we will continue learning how to write a narrative story.
• In math we will focus on writing numbers 1-20!
• Our theme next week is continuing to learn about the first Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims and Native Americans!

Important Dates/Information:
 

• 11/26-11/27 Thanksgiving break--NO SCHOOL
• 12/4--All School Behavior Incentive Field Trip--PMO Christmas Show
• 12/8-Barnes and Noble Night 5-7:30
• 12/16-Christmas Program. Students arrive at McCutcheon High School no later than 6:30 and the show begins at 7:00
• 12/18-End of 2nd Nine Weeks

Week in Review-Nocturnal Animals (week 2)

Reading:

This week in reading, our CAFE strategy focused on Make a Mental Image while reading a text. This strategy helps the reader feel as though they are part of the text and aids in comprehension during and after reading the text.

We started our weekly word family study this week. Our first word family was the -at family. We went on picture -at word family QR hunt around the room where we scanned the code and a picture appeared, we then wrote the -at word that went along with that picture.

We put a new choice for our work on writing choice. Students are to write a response to a book from their book box and our new option is to illustrate and write a response specifcally about the setting in a story.

 

For our vocabulary review lesson this week, we created an iMovie showing each word in action! We will continue to create iMovies as a class and eventually students will create them on their own and in small groups or with their iPad partners!

 

 Poem of the Week

Writing:
We continued our writing practice about writing a narrative or a true story. We discussed a topic that we all are familiar with to write. We decided that we all know things we do at school. We wrote a different page every day remembering to focus on staying on topic, writing a true story and remembering to add the who, where and what in the story. We also practiced how to be a smarty speller and writing unknown words by "saying it like a turtle, stretching it like a snake and writing down the sounds we hear". We are beginning to be such a great writers. I can't wait to see the true stories they come up with next week all on their own!

We also continued to add our finished pieces to the Book Creator app on our iPads. We are getting much better at using the app, adding our pictures and voice. We will continue to develop our skills within this app all year!





















Math:
We learned all about number bonds this week! We focused on the numbers 1-5 and the different ways to make that number as a number bond. This skill will help students when they are using addition and subtraction. A child who "knows" number bonds should be able to immediately fill in any one of these three numbers if it were missing, given the other two, without having to "work it out". We will continue to work with number bonds all school year and addition and subtraction sentnces as well. We will focus on numbers bonds 6-10 later in the year.

We also began to transition or writing journals from paper pencil to adding a math journal to our Book Creator app. I am excited for the students to begin using this app for their journals. They will be able to work out a problem, vocabulary word or number of the day sequence and record their voice explaining what they did. Being able to explain their thinking about math is a skill that will help develop the student's critical thinking skills. So much fun!







Content:

Week two learning all about nocturnal animals was fun! We focused on raccoons, opposums, hedgehogs and owls! We watched videos with our iPad partner, shared one fact we learned and put those facts into a Popplet! We had so many great ideas! We also finished the week by creating an owl and labeling the parts of the owls body that helps him hunt for food at night!

MYSTERY SKYPE! If your child did not tell you about our mystery skype session with our new friends from Nebraska, be sure to ask them right now! Before we began the Skype, we discussed manners we should use during the call and a few possible questions that we might want to ask to find out where they live. Our friends called us Friday morning and they started by asking us a series of questions to find out what state we live in and once they figured it out, it was our turn to ask them! The class came up with really great questions. A few examples were...

• Do you live by the dessert?
• Does it snow where you live?
• Do you live by Mexico?
• What letter does your state begin with?
• Do you live near Indiana?

And much more! I was beyond impressed with the questions the class came up with. We ultimately found out they live in Nebraska, which isn't TOO far away from where we live. We were excited to find out that they also have reading, writing and math time in their kindergarten class and they go to computer lab, music and gym...just like us! We had so much fun learning about our new friends. We are excited to do more mystery skype lessons and add to our map of new places we learn about!

I had to post a picture of our behavior chart from Wednesday this week. We had EVERY student above the green "ready to go" spot and three students on blue! Students were impressing me all day long with positive choice making and being kind to one another. I hope we have more and more days like this.


On Wednesday, we celebrated our nation's veterans with an all school assembly where we watched, listend and sang along with the fourth and fifth grade classes. It was a wonderful program!

PRACTICE AT HOME:

Have your child tell you about the -at word family. Create words from the word family together, spell them, read them, write them and stretch the soudns out! 

 

Next Week:

• In reading we will learn the CAFE strategy "Respond to Questions about the Story".
• In writing we will continue learning how to write a narrative story.
• In math we will focus on addition up to 5!
• Our theme next week is learning about the first Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims and Native Americans!

Important Dates/Information:
 

• 11/19-Parent University
• 11/26-11/27 Thanksgiving break--NO SCHOOL
• 12/4--All School Behavior Incentive Field Trip--PMO Christmas Show
• 12/8-Barnes and Noble Night 5-7:30
• 12/16-Christmas Program..students arrive at McCutcheon High School no later than 6:30 and the show begins at 7:00
• 12/18-End of 2nd Nine Weeks