Early Dismissal Wednesday

Today is an early dismissal day and tomorrow there is no school!!

However, since our specials are in the afternoon and there is no recess on an early dismissal day, we had lots of learning time in our day!  :-)

We began our day with math rotations.  During the small group instruction, students worked to analyze subtraction problems and choose a strategy that best fit the problem.  The first problem that the students tackled lent itself to using the compensation strategy for subtraction (see below).  Students were led to the realization that strategies fit some problems better than others.

An interesting happened with my first small group.  We all, me included, struggled to make the compensation strategy work for a subtraction problem.  This was a great teachable moment!!  I was able to point out, that from our mistake, we learned that this strategy wasn't the best one for us to use!

During math by myself, students used their digit tiles to create 3 digit subtraction problems.  Then they solved these problems and showed their thinking.  Finally, they used addition to check their work.  This activity will be graded.

Finally, during the technology rotation the children worked with a partner to select 2 numbers that had an identified difference.

There is NO homework tonight and NO quiz on Friday due to the Jewish holiday.

We ate lunch between the second and third math rotations.  After math we took a quick Go Noodle brain break.

We began the literacy block by reviewing 3 personal narrative examples and identifying the improvements in each.  Then we reviewed the rubric that I will use to grade each personal narrative.  The students will have access to both of these resources as they work on their final draft.

While I met with reading groups (well, one group) the students worked on revising their personal narrative rough drafts and publishing their final draft.  Additionally, they continued their research to find 2-3 facts that answers each of the inquiry questions.  When they have completed these tasks they will choose read with a partner, listen to reading using One More Story or correct the spelling of pink words and add them to their Quick Word Handbooks.

Panthers:  We began by using the rule that states a c followed by an "e" or "i" sounds like an "s", as in the word ceiling.  Then we reviewed the beginning, middle and end that they marked, in their books, for homework last night.  After that, the students took notes on a Google Slide document explaining what a key detail is and how to decide if a detail is important.

Again, there is no homework tonight and no quiz on Friday.  Also, there is no school tomorrow!