Busy, busy, busy

That's what we are in here...BUSY! Getting lots accomplished, though!

I finally got the second set of personal narratives graded. Look for those in home folders today! I was very impressed with the students' writing...I saw many GREAT beginnings that truly grabbed my attention and made me want to read on! I also saw excellent use of sensory images to describe their experiences.

In math today, we created another bar graph using data provided. Once again, the students had to use the data to determine an appropriate scale. Additionally, we discussed writing labels for their graphs that matched the data. For example, looking at last night's homework, the numbers represented the number of STUDENTS not the number of sports.

While the students worked independently, I was able to work with a small group on identifying numerical patterns and continuing that pattern. Homework tonight is to review LAST week's quiz in preparation for tomorrow's quiz...the quiz will cover the same skills addressed in the same manner using different numbers.

During reading, students continued to identify words with the -er sound in them. Then, as a group, we sorted them according to the spelling of the -er sound (whether it was spelled -er, -ir, -ur, etc.) Additionally, I met with the FLASH group to read and discuss their book.

Following PE, lunch and recess, the class had an opportunity to share their writing while students had a bathroom and drink break.

Then we continued the writing lesson from yesterday. Students looked through their writer's notebook at various personal narratives. They selected a sentence that wasn't very descriptive and added more details where appropriate. I think that by having the children focus on one sentence at a time it made the process less overwhelming and possibly even a little fun?!?!

Finally, we used chromatography to determine which candy left a smudge on a "candy machine". This was our final experiment in the Crime Lab science unit.