Marvelous Monday

What's not to love about a Monday following a Redskins victory!?!?!

We began our day with a class meeting.  First, we did a group share completing the thought, "One good thing that happened to me recently..."  It was fun to hear about successes our friends had achieved!  Then we shared compliments.  After that, we returned to our problem solving that we began last week.  We discussed ways to motivate ourselves to follow all directions--both spoken and written.  The students came up with many ideas.  One idea that seemed to excite the group was keeping track of who followed directions and who needs to improve using a t-chart and clothespins.  When students don't follow directions their clip would be moved.  They would have opportunities to have the clip moved back.  At the end of the week, students who worked hard to follow directions would get to pick out of a prize box.

After that, we discussed the importance of reading text closely when making inferences.  I showed the children how to analyze the words chosen by the author and think about their background knowledge in order to identify inferences within the text.

Next, I modeled how to use their community action graphic organizer to write three detail sentences that supports their main idea or topic sentence.

While I pulled small groups the students wrote three detail sentences and completed individual reading group assignments.

This morning I pulled small groups of students who needed help with their writing.  The first group centered around writing their main idea or topic sentence.  The second group worked on writing detail sentences that supported their topic sentences.

In math we began investigating division.  Today we focused on the distribution or sharing method of division.  You can find today's lesson here or on the lessons page of the blog.  The students began a worksheet in class and need to complete the final three problems for homework.  Please make sure they follow the example at the top of the page.

Following lunch and indoor recess the students continued their independent work while I met with all four reading groups!

Sharks:  We reviewed and discussed the beginning, middle and end they drew for the chapter called, "A Game".  We also discussed the reason the chapter was called "A Game".  For homework they need to read, "On the Avenue" and list unknown words from the chapter.

Cheetahs:  We reviewed chapter8.  For homework they need to reread chapter 8 and either finish or review the beginning, middle and end they drew in their RRJ.

Yellow Jackets:  We reviewed the beginning, middle and end of chapter 9.  Tonight they need to reread chapter 9 and either finish or review their beginning, middle and end pictures.

Snakes:  The children read pages 4-7 independently and wrote two facts they learned about ducks.  Then we shared and discussed these facts.  For homework they need to reread pages 2-7 (think fluency!) and list words with double vowels, from the book, in their RRJ.  Examples of double vowel words include wEEds, sEEds,and EAt.

We ended the day by looking at pictures of different types of tires and discussing the different sizes and treads.  Then I introduced the terms constant (something that doesn't change) and variable (something that changes).  Last week the children built cars in small groups...they followed the same set of directions and used the same materials, so, these become our constants  Tomorrow they will use materials to create a tire cover for their wheels.  They will choose from a variety of materials and decide how to build them...these become the variables.  We will eventually test their tires to see which design is fastest of different surfaces.