Hump Day

The children began their day in the Media center.  When they returned to class we finally read the entire book of The Memory String by Eve Bunting.  After discussing the book, I modeled completing a story map, similar to the one the children are using to plan their own realistic fiction picture book.  I wanted the children to see how the structure of the map relates to a complete story.

Next, children introduced their main characters to our class by sharing the webs they created in class  and finished for homework.

Finally, I showed the children how to identify a solution to the problem and use the character web to plan events leading the main character from the problem to the solution.

(Believe it or not, I had planned to also teach the structure of writing dialogue in text...but that will wait for another day when we have time!  )

While I meet with some small groups and other individual students, the children will complete their story maps and finish the Backyard Toys BCR.

In math reviewed the various methods we have used to identify equivalent fractions.  Then I took it a step further and introduced multiplying the numerator and the denominator by the same number to produce an equivalent fraction.  View the lesson here. After that, the students continued using Cuisenaire Rods to identify equivalent fractions.  This was a continuation of yesterday's independent work. 

I met with two small groups.  One group practiced plotting fractions and mixed numbers on a number line.  The second group worked on partitioning grids into equal groups and naming the fraction for shaded and unshaded parts.  There is a worksheet for homework.  The top two rows of the worksheet must be completed tonight and returned to school tomorrow.  Tomorrow night the students will complete the middle two rows.  The last row is optional.

Following lunch and outdoor recess the students continued their independent work.

Yellow Jackets:  We met and finished reading and discussing chapter 3 of Journey.  We had a great discussion about what the author meant by, "The camera knows."

Snakes:  We did word work using vocabulary from their book and high frequency words.  Then we retold the first half of the story.  Finally, we read up to page 11 and practiced covering word endings (suffixes) to help decode words.  For homework they need to reread pages 8-11.

Yellow Jackets, Sharks and Cheetahs:  FOR HOMEWORK, they need to read, "Protecting the Pandas" and underline portions of the text that tell why pandas are special.  DO NOT ANSWER THE BCR.

Due to a fire drill, we ran out of time for our social studies lesson.  Instead we discussed the realistic fiction picture book project and I answered a few of the childrens' questions.