Fantastic Friday - Early Release

This morning the students completed the Friday portion of the vocabulary sheet for our word of the week, brief.  After that, since it is free choice Friday, the got to choose which academic skill they wished to practice.  After watching the announcements on the Promethean board, we switched for math.

Math began with a logic word problem.  Then we reviewed last night's homework.  Next we began our rotations.

During the small group rotation, we represented and solved multiplicative comparison problems using equation with a variable to represent the unknown.  During math with a partner, the students played a multiplicative comparison bump board game.  Finally, during the technology portion, the students completed a session of Xtra math.  Then they watched a Learn Zillion lesson about representing and solving multiplicative comparison word problems.  Those who had time left over practiced solving word problems using the Live Binder.

In between our second and third rotations, we went to lunch.

After math, we handed out Dojo rewards, went over the weekly puzzles, and then, began our literacy block.

Today I handed out, and reviewed, a text structure chart for non-fiction text.  After that, I did a mini-lesson, for writing, covering strong openings and peer conferencing.

While I met with groups, the students reread their guided reading article and used a web to identify the topic and 4 important pieces of information from the text.  After that, they met with their writing partners to peer conference and revise opening sentences.

Pink:  We used the title, headings, topic sentences, and other text features to determine the topic of their text and four important facts.  We also discussed paraphrasing by changing word order and using synonyms (for example, instead of organisms feed, we wrote organisms eat).

Blue:  We used the title, topic sentences, captions, and repeated words  to determine the topic of their text and four important facts.  We also discussed paraphrasing by changing word order and using synonyms (for example, instead of organisms feed, we wrote organisms eat).

I didn't get a chance to meet with the green group, due to the early release.

Have a great weekend!