Book Fair

The book fair is at DES this week. Come by tonight and Ms. Jones will read to your children while you shop for holiday gifts!

In math we practiced using various strategies to solve division problems. I worked with small groups practicing using simpler facts to solve more challenging problems. For example, if you know that 5x7 = 35, add one more group of 7 to discover that 6x7 = 42. There is a worksheet for homework AND all students should be spending 3-5 minutes practicing their basic fact flashcards each night.

We continued our study of folktales in reading. Today we read Cinderella and practiced sequencing. I paused several times during my reading and reviewed (out loud) what had happened so far. Then at the end, I retold the entire story. Sequencing is an important skill that is used to retell and summarize.

After that the students got into small groups to work on writing. In their groups, they read an article and began creating a jellyfish graphic organizer. Tomorrow they will complete this graphic organizer, in their groups. We will then share the organizers and I will help the children see what should have been added. The purpose of this activity is to help students improve their writing. I am predicting the students will include details that everyone already knows. I will point that out and show them NEW information that should have been included in order to teach their readers new information...the purpose of informative writing.

Following art, lunch and recess we will meet in reading groups and work independently. Students will continue working on their rough drafts from last week.
Additionally, many have to redo the reading comprehension worksheet...answers were not written in complete sentences and some did not use the text to answer the questions. The final assignment that students worked on was a sequence activity.

Bears: Practiced writing high frequency words. Continued reading book and locating information. Tonight they need to reread the entire book.

Tigers: Practiced writing high frequency words. Practiced identifying the answers to questions 1-3, orally. Tonight they need to answer the same questions, in writing, in their RRJ.

Lions: Discussed playing tricks on other people as prereading activity for their new story. Then I read The Man Whose Trade was Tricks out loud. Tonight they need to reread the story and list questions they have in their RRJ.

We ended the day with a science experiment. Students used pitch forks to create sound. We learned that sound is created through vibrations and that the number of vibrations per second is called the frequency. The frequency determines the pitch of a sound.