We Made It!!

Today is the last day of school before Winter Break!!!  While there is a lot of excitement in the air, this class is such a joy, the kids are definitely not out of control...just the opposite....it's kind of quiet in here!  :-)

We began the day with a holiday concert performed by the DHS Marching Band!  This is a special treat that we enjoy each year.

When we returned to class we discussed the idea of a New Year's Resolution.  Then I read the story, Squirrel's New Year's Resolution.  After that, the students brainstormed resolutions they could make.  Finally, they chose a tool, either lap top or iPad, and created a certificate/poster stating their New Year's Resolution.  These will hang on the bulletin board outside of our classroom.

In math, the students finished calculating the area of the rectilinear figure from yesterday.  Then they shared their work, using the iPad and Apple TV, with the class. 

Following lunch and outdoor recess we worked on reading to perform a task and writing to express personal ideas as we made cards and gingerbread men.

We ended the day by watching a student's video presentation.

Thursday

The children began their day in art.  When they returned to the classroom, I modeled using the mentor paper, Heating and Cooling, to  guide their writing.  Then the students continued writing, revising and publishing their writing.  I continued working one-on-one with students who needed help.

In math we reviewed calculating the area of rectilinear figures.  You can view a lesson here.  Then the students worked in small groups to calculate the area of a rectilinear figure and show their thinking using the iPad app, Penultimate.  We will share these tomorrow, in class.

Following lunch and outdoor recess, the students continued working on their research paper.  Many of them finished it, too!!  WOO HOO!!

I attempted to meet with reading groups without disrupting the publishing process.  This proved to be challenging.

Yellow Jackets:  We met and identified the theme of the story as honesty.  We used details from the story to support this, in our discussion.  We will begin a new book after break.

Sharks:  We met and I collected their books.  They will begin a a new book after break.

Cheetahs:  We met and read and discussed the last 3 chapters of the book.  Our discussions involved identifying examples of cause and effect and finding sentences in the text that supported our thoughts.

Snakes:  Individual students met with me and practiced reading their books.

While this blog post looks short, we did get a lot accomplished today!  There is no homework!

We will return to a regular routine following Winter Break!!

Wednesday - halfway there!

After visiting the media center, the children returned to class ready to get to work on their tech tool research project.  First, we evaluated the fourth and final paragraph in the Heating and Cooling mentor paper.  Then, I modeled using that paper as a guide to write my final paragraph for my piece about football helmets.  After that, I wrote an outline on the board stating the expectations for each of the four paragraphs.  This did not contain new information, but was a different way to convey what they have been told and shown in the past.  Finally, the children worked independently on their assignment.

The students are at various places within the project.  Some are gathering more information, some are still drafting their rough draft, some are revising and pothers are publishing their final copy on the lap tops.  Our goal is to have these completed by Friday, before Winter Break.  Therefore, I have been working with individual students instead of meeting with reading groups.

In math, we reviewed how to calculate the area of a rectilinear figure and Mrs. Head showed us a strategy using cubes.  Then we identified how to calculate the area of torn figures.  There is a homework worksheet to practice this skill.

Following lunch and outdoor recess we continued working on the tech tool research project.  I spent my time working one-on-one with students who needed help.  The others spent there time researching, writing and publishing.  We will continue tomorrow....fingers crossed, they will all be done before Winter Break!

Terrific Tuesday

The students began their day in PE.  While they were gone, I began reviewing the rough drafts, for the first three sections of the tech tool writing piece, of the students who thought they were done.  I discovered that the third section, the paragraph of the tech tool as it is in the present, was not what I had anticipated.  This led me to check through the research links, in preparation for conferencing with these students after PE. 

I discovered that deciding which information was the most current and being able to decipher what the articles were saying was quite challenging.  Therefore, when the children got back from PE, I taught them how to skim and scan for key words (such as modern), in order to identify the correct information for the third paragraph.

The rest of the reading and writing block involved students reading about their tools to gain more information and then writing  and revising their first three paragraphs.  I worked with individuals, as needed, to help locate information, revise sentence structure, reorganize their facts within their writing, etc., etc.

At the end of  the block, I felt we had made some progress.  I also decided that after writing their rough drafts, all revisions would be done on the lap tops...to help reduce frustration and speed up the overall process.

Therefore, over the next three days, our primary focus will be completing (fingers crossed) this written component of the tech tool research project.

In math the students completed their presentations which they started yesterday.  Then some groups shared them.

Following lunch and recess we visited Mr. Vogel's to discuss the expectations that are involved with the privilege of iPad use.  Then Mr. Vogel shared different gaming systems from the past, including Atari, Nintendo 64 and Play Station.  He identified the changes that were made and explained the human wants that caused the improvements.

We ended the day with a FABULOUS assembly.  We were treated to a scientific skateboard show called Wondergy.  The presenters were very engaging and explained the science behind helmets and certain skateboard tricks.  It was really well done!

Unfortunately, we ran out of time for me to assign homework...so tonight is homework free!  Sorry about that!  :-)

Monday

We began our day with our regular class meeting.  We started with a group share where children completed the statement, "I am lucky because...".  After that, we shared compliments and challenges.  Once again, the research/writing project emerged as a challenge for many students.

So, we began our reading and writing block by reviewing the requirements for each paragraph.  I reminded the students that the first paragraph was brief and should include the topic and how changes have improved it.  The second paragraph needs to state who invented it and when, how it works and what human wants or needs created a need for improvements or changes.  The third paragraph should include the most recent version, who invented it and when, how it works and what makes it better than in the past.  I also created a sign up for students who need one-on-one help from me. 

After that, we reviewed how text features clarify information in non-fiction text.  Then we read an article about the Florida Everglades and noticed how the text features (especially photographs and maps) helped us, as readers, to understand the text.   We also tied in the idea that the changes in the Everglades were brought about by human wants and needs...just like our tech tools...I pointed out that really, humans wants and needs drive changes in our society everyday!

While I meet with individual students and reading groups the children worked on independent reading group assignments and their tech tools research and writing project.

Snakes:  They read pages 8-10 after highlight the -sh and-ing chunks, using highlighting tape.

Sharks:  They wrote a summary of their book, in the RRJ.

Cheetahs:  These students read chapter 2 and explained the title of the chapter using information from it.

Yellow Jackets:  These children read chapter 6 and explained what Seb will be doing on Saturdays from now on.

In math we calculated the area of  rectilinear (real word!) figures by splitting them into rectangles first.  Below is an example of a rectilinear figure!

 

 

After working with the class to identify the area of the rectilinear figure above in several different ways, the children worked in groups, using the iPad, to calculate the area of a different rectilinear figure.  We will share these tomorrow, in class. 

 

There is an area worksheet for homework.

 

Following lunch and outdoor recess the students, working with Mr. Vogel's class, completed a service project for the Damascus Senior Center, as part of Mrs. Howard's guidance lesson.  The reindeer the students made will be given to those at the center as a holiday gift.



 

 

Aren't they cute???

 

We ended the day by learning about the different states of matter (solid, liquid and gas).  We watched a video segment and then visited this cool web site.

 

Just a quick note...

 

I appreciate you trusting me with your children each and every day!  I truly love working with each and every one of them!

 

 

I did not hear any students discussing Friday's horrendous and horrific events.  I just thought I would mention that, because as a parent myself, I am wondering what my kindergartner's day was like today.

 

Also, we will be using this week to try to tie up loose ends...I am hoping to finish the writing project...fingers crossed...and reading groups will not receive a new book, once they finish their current one, until we return from Winter Break.

 

As always, please feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns, at dana_c_holman@mcpsmd.org

A Lesson in Perseverance!

I'm quite sure your children will fill you in when they get home, but today was kinda crazy!  This morning, around 11:00, we lost partial power in our classroom and no Internet access.  Then, this afternoon, we lost all of our power until 3:00ish.  Though it all, we pressed on with our learning tasks!!!

After going to art, we returned to the classroom and I passed back the children's writing journals in which I had provided feedback on the children's second paragraph of their tech tools project.  Then we reviewed the requirements and revisited my model paper.  Next, I modeled writing the third paragraph, about the present tech tool, for the class.

The students then finished making their cards for the cancer patients and attempted to gather more research for their tech tool writing pieces so they could make the improvements that my feedback indicated needed to be made.  Unfortunately, the power thing happened...

In math, we used our basic fact knowledge and square tiles to construct rectangles with a given area.  The students then drew pictures of the rectangles on graph paper and wrote an equation to match their drawing.  There is a worksheet for homework similar to their classwork.  We will have a quiz tomorrow.

Following lunch and outdoor recess the students returned to our classroom and worked on cards for the cancer patients...with all of the power issues, working on the writing piece was just too frustrating.  During this time I met with several reading groups.

Sharks:  We reviewed their answers to question 4 (homework from a few nights ago) and practiced retelling the story in preparation to write a summary next week.

Snakes:  We reviewed the -sh and-ch digraphs and reread pages 2-6, focusing on fluency.

Cheetahs:  We reviewed unknown words from chapter 1, retold the chapter and discussed the main character.

We ended the day with science (and power!).  We reviewed the meaning of mixture and reviewed which substance would be easiest to remove (rocks) and the observable property that made this so (the size of the rocks).  Then the children worked in groups to remove the rocks from their mixture.  They are now left with a mixture of sand and slat...stay tuned...we will separate these!

I will be out of the building tomorrow...so there will not be a blog post.  Students will focus on getting the 3 paragraphs of their writing pieces complete.  There will be a quiz in math that will not be scored and returned until Monday (sorry).  Also, they will read about the "wonders" of Africa and identify which "wonder" they think is the most spectacular.

Have a great weekend!

Wonderful Wednesday

The children began their day in the media center. 

When they returned to class we gained some background knowledge about Africa by viewing a PowerPoint of photographs taken of the continent and locating the continent using Google Earth.  After that, we used text features to identify the meaning of the word continent, to help us clarify information we read about Africa using the online Encyclopedia Britannica article.

Next, I shared a student's writing sample, written by one of our classmates yesterday, of their introductory section for the tech tools research piece.  After that, we revisited the Heating and Cooling mentor writing piece and identified what information was contained in the second paragraph, about the past.  Then, using our observations, I modeled writing a paragraph about the past, using my topic, football helmets.

Independent work, today, will include the students drafting their paragraph about the past of their tech tool, making a card for the cancer patients and gluing their letter inside, and using Google Earth and the online Encyclopedia Britannica to learn more about Africa, on the iPads.

This morning I met with small groups of students to work on their writing pieces.

In math we used our knowledge of area to solve a word problem.  The lesson can be viewed here.  Unfortunately, the lesson took longer than anticipated and we did not cover enough material for the classwork or homework I had planned.  SO, for homework tonight, the children should go to the virtual manipulative web site and practice using the site.  I would LOVE for students to construct a rectangle using counters (on the site) and write an equation to represent the area and then print it and bring it in...HOWEVER...this is NOT required! 

For example, they could construct a rectangle with 3 rows of 7 counters in each row.  The equation would be 3x7=21ft.sq.

Following lunch and outdoor recess the students continued working independently while I worked with small groups of students on their research and writing.  Therefore, reading groups did not meet.

We ended the day with science.  First, the students discussed how to separate their mixtures into their original components...BUT, then I ADDED another component to each group's mixture.  So, the new mixtures all contain rocks, sand and salt.  The students then began brainstorming testable ways to separate their new mixtures.  Stay tuned...