Wonderful Wednesday

This morning the children began their day with a visit to the media center.

When they returned to class we reviewed the characteristics of realistic fiction and the idea of the central message (author's message, theme, main idea, etc.) in a text.  Right now I am using central message, theme, author's message interchangeably.  The students have been told that the author doesn't explicitly state the central message.  Instead, as good readers, we have to infer it by looking for repeated ideas and seeing how the main details, events or ideas fit together.

We read the book Tonight is Carnaval and started to identify repeated ideas and key points in the text.  We will revisit the text tomorrow and use these details to help us determine the central message.

After that, I reviewed the concept for our next writing assignment.  The students will be choosing an action, either environmental or health and wellness related,  that will help improve our community.  They will write a piece where they state their opinion and use research to back up their idea.

Today they were given a planning sheet and instructed to work with a partner to list topic ideas, from Live Binder, for environmental and health and wellness topics.

While students worked on finishing their publishing from last week, the organizer I described above and individual reading group assignments, I met with reading groups.

Yellow Jackets:  We shared important information they highlighted in their baseball articles.  After that they read chapter 1 independently.  For homework they need to reread chapter 1 and write a title for the CHAPTER, on the sticky note provided, with a BRIEF explanation.  The title should be short, catchy and reflect the events in the chapter.

After completing our math warm up we reviewed each problem in last night's homework.  Then I introduced a new subtraction strategy, decomposing using compensation.  You can view the lesson here.

After the whole group lesson, Mrs. Head and I each pulled a small group to practice using the base ten block decomposition strategy from last night's homework.  The rest of the children had a follow up worksheet from today's whole group lesson.  There was an iPad available for the children to review my lesson using Educreations.

There is a worksheet for homework.  Feel free to use the link above to help!

After enjoying lunch and recess the students continued working on their independent work and I continued meeting with reading groups.

Cheetahs:  I collected their Teamwork book and introduced our next book, a realistic fiction novel called Different Dragons.  Since the book is realistic fiction, the dragon in the title is obviously not a mythical, fire-breathing creature.  Instead it is symbolic of, the main character, Ben's fears.  We had a great discussion, in group, about our own personal dragons.  Tonight, for homework, the children need to describe in detail one of their own dragons.  This response should be at least 3-5 sentences.

Sharks:  I collected their A Chair for My Mother books and handed out a new book, Trip to Freedom.  We discussed the fact that many Vietnamese people came to America in search of a better life.  For homework tonight the children need to read pages 3-7 and list unknown words on the sticky note I gave them.

Snakes:  The students received a new book today.  We did some word work using white boards and vocabulary from the new book.  Then we read the book aloud in group.  For homework tonight they need to reread the book working on fluency.

We ended the day reviewing the concept of gravity and viewing a video clip in which some students built a roller coaster for a marble.