REPORT CARD Thursday

We began our reading block this morning with the students orally sharing one of the acrostic poems they wrote yesterday in class.  Of course, I offered praise and polish as they read.  Then we read the second chapter of the Jack Prelutsky autobiography.  I am loving this book as it clearly shows how he turns his memories into poems.  After that, we identified and named the structure of poetry (lines, stanzas, title, beginning, middle and end) and labeled the rhyming patterns in a poem.

In math we tackled the fractions of a set with much better results!  Today I taught a skip counting strategy.  So, if you take 1/3 of 12, you skip count by the denominator (3, 6, 9, 12).  The number of times you skip count is the number in each group.  Today most of the children completed a practice worksheet independently.  Mrs. Benson and I both worked with small groups of students to practice the skip counting strategy.  Additionally, I met with another small group to practice identifying fractions and mixed numbers on a number line.  Tonight's homework is a multiplication practice worksheet.

Following art, lunch and recess I assigned independent work for the children to work on while I met with reading groups.  Assignments today included a final copy of an acrostic poem to be turned in for a grade and a poem for students to label (stanza, line, beg/middle/end and rhyming patterns).

Reading Groups
Bears:  We met and reviewed some challenging vocabulary in chapter 1 of their new book (to be handed out soon) Bunnicula.  We practiced using the new words and began a list in the vocabulary section of their RRJ.

Lions:  To review the first 10 chapters of the book and practice identifying important events, we began writing a group summary.  We passed around a white board.  Each person added a sentence, or an event, to the board, telling what happened.  We had a lot of discussion as to what were important events and what was just background information.  We will continue this tomorrow.

We ended the day by discussing what plants need to grow.  I also explained to the students how the hydration system, which our plants will be using, works.

Students also received their report cards today.  Please look for it in your child's home folder.