Some Updates

Hi Families!
We have been having a nice week back at school learning about Earth Day and how we can care for the earth. Projects have been coming in and they are adorable! We are all excited to share them tomorrow morning!  We made adorable Earth Day books that are hung in the room. On each page the children wrote some facts about harming and helping the planet. We also made (some are not finished) Reduce/Reuse/Recycle mobiles. We learned about how earthworms are helpful and good for Earth!

Unfortunately when I came back from vacation our lima bean seeds had taken a turn for the worst. A few had started to sprout but they became very moldy. I had to throw them away but told the kids we would try again!

 

 

We are finishing up our unit on opinions and persuasive letters. The students did such a fabulous job writing their persuasive letters. Today we revised and edited a letter with a partner. We will finish them tomorrow and "publish" them. I hope to get them on the blog with the students reading them aloud as I did with their opinion pieces.

 

 

I can't wait to see and hear all about the projects tomorrow and I will be back to post some pictures! I will also be sending home a notice soon with two important end of year dates for our classroom. A writing celebration (during the school day) and an end of year slide show celebration (after school, 6pm).

 

I will leave you with a challenge for your children! Again, please email me the answers. 2/3 correct earn a little prize.

 

1.  Name the 3 R's!

2.  Tell something that can help Earth.

3.  Tell something that harms Earth.







What are we up to?

Well...
In Reading Workshop we are working in a brand new unit called "Reading Across Genres". The students are in book clubs as they were in the nonfiction unit, but this time they are reading both fiction and nonfiction books around one topic. Some of our "clubs" are The Moon, Knights/Castles, and China. The students are working on finding factual information in fictional books, encountering nontruths and looking through nonfiction to get accurate information, as well as realizing they can learn information from fictional books. Some of our next lessons will involve vocabulary related to the topic. We will continue with this unit until after vacation. The students will probably choose one other topic after vacation.

In Writing Workshop we are working on Persuasive Letter writing. The students are learning strategies for writing a strong piece of persuasive writing. I am so pleased with their progress, they are really working hard and putting a lot of thought into their reasons! The things that they are trying to persuade about are priceless! I will have some pictures up soon.

In Math we are working on finding differences, problem solving, place value and much more. The students have learned some new games such as "The Difference Game" and "Base Ten Exchange". I try to do a Math Workshop approach once or twice a week on my longer days which allows me to meet with small groups during this time.

In Science we are working on a unit on Plants. We charted our schema and put together our lima bean greenhouses. Those will stay up all week and the students will observe any changes each morning and write them down in their observation journal. We will learn about the parts of a plant and do a few fun activities.

Our class could use some of the following if you are able: skinny dry erase markers, glue sticks, colored cardstock (8x11), and did I mention glue sticks? :) We use these almost daily!

Thank you for stopping by!