TGIF!!

The students began this rainy day in PE with Mr. Lee.

When they returned to class they took the fifth math quiz of the marking period.  These have been scored and returned.  They should be stored in the math section of the binder.

After the quiz, the children continued working on their zoos.  They began this activity yesterday.  The connection to math is they must calculate the area of each of the exhibits.

We began our reading and writing block by looking at a worksheet to help develop and form paragraphs, for our community action projects, using our research.  This was to help clarify what additional information they may need to gather when they visit the computer lab on Monday, with Mrs. Rose.

Next, we reviewed nouns, both common and proper.  We also defined singular and plural nouns.  We explained how most (regular) plural nouns are formed (by adding -s and -es).  Then I introduced the idea of an irregular plural noun being one that is not formed using -s or -es.  We identified the plural of some irregular nouns and learned how to identify if a noun is singular or plural if the word stays the same (use the rest of the sentence).

Finally, we reviewed the format of a friendly letter and discussed writing thank you notes to service men and women overseas in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. 

Independent work today focused on reading group assignments and writing the above mentioned thank you notes. 

Sharks:    First, we had an informal pop-quiz on the words we worked on earlier this week.  Then, we reviewed the 3-2-1 summarizer they completed after watching the video about main ideas, yesterday.  I reiterated the need to pay attention to repeated content words and text features.  After that, we revisited the article, "Into the Rain Forest" and used the text features and repeated content words to determine the main idea.  We decided it was, "Lucy Cooke explores the rain forest to study frogs."

Following lunch and indoor recess the students continued their independent work while I met with more groups.

Dolphins:  We practiced reading and writing new words:  pieces, said, over, root, except

We also learned, "i before e except after c".

Then we did a words chain with -ay.

Finally, we reread pages 3-12 and used text features and repeated words to identify the main idea.  We decided it was, "Soil is made out of dead animals and plants, and rocks.

Cheetahs:  The students met as a group, without me, to share and discuss the main idea statements they wrote for homework last night.  Their task was to decide upon a mutually agreeable main idea statement and be prepared to convince me that their idea is correct.  In group, they shared their statement...and they were SOOOO close.  So, we worked together to revise it!  :-)

Pandas:  The students retold chapter 16 in their RRJ.  When they got to group we shared their entries.  Unfortunately, they had missed the mark, so we reviewed how to determine what is important information in a chapter.  Then we discussed what they had done correctly and I reviewed why parts of the chapter were important and other parts not.  Finally, we discussed the central message of the entire book.

We ended the day watching a video segment about the Roman Republic.  We recognized many aspects of the US government which had been taken from the Romans.  Unfortunately, we were told we would learn about services provided from tax money the Romans collected and...well, we didn't!  :-(