Welcome to our classroom blog. I am a little late getting started this year.
It is Day 8 of school and we have really been working hard. Here are some of the highlights of our first 8 days.
We started the year with some GET TO KNOW YOU activities. Some of these included:
- Find Someone Who...
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| Students looked for classmates who... read more than 10 books, went to the movies, have a summer birthday, like artichokes! |
- Two Truths and a Fib - Some of these facts were tricky! We listened as our peers read their three sentences aloud and we tried to decipher which one was the FIB!
- Artifact Bags: Students shared their artifacts with their table mates and will next write about the items they shared!
We read a book called How I Spent My Summer Vacation by Mark Teague. In the story, Wallace Bleff stands and tells his class about his summer vacation and how he was captured by cowboys on his trip out west to visit his aunt.
We then wrote about our summer vacation.... one part with an actual event and one part using our imagination. They were very creative!
I read aloud every day to the class and we have enjoyed some picture books together. Some other fan favorites were:
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| Charlie writes an ad in the paper looking for an owner. He is looking for someone under 12, who wears glasses, and lives in the city. But as the letters start coming in, Charlie continues to revise his checklist. Perhaps his perfect owner is closer than he thinks! We then wrote a checklist for GOOD STUDENTS. We came up with some excellent criteria! You can check these out on the bulletin board outside our classroom! |
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| This story is all about GIRL POWER. The princess learns that she doesn't need a prince to rescue her. She can rescue the prince! |
We started our first chapter book Muggie Maggie by Beverly Cleary today. Maggie is a third grader who is not so sure she wants to learn cursive writing. Well, we do! We started today with the letter "i"!
In Math, we have been doing some review of concepts... like addition, subtraction and place value. We have played some fun math games with partners.
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| Abby and Lydia tackle place value! |
We have started a math WORD WALL for new vocabulary terms that we learn. On our wall already are words like factor, product, fact family, standard form, and expanded form.
Multiplication is now underway and we are learning about the symbol "X" - as meaning "times" or "groups of". We are working on repeated addition and multiplication sentences to solve problems.
This picture shows us 3 groups of 4 apples.
repeated addition: 4 + 4 + 4 = 12
multiplication: 3 X 4 = 12 (3 groups of 4)
We also read about HISTORY close to home in a text book called Massachusetts, Our Home. Students were excited to learn about many of our state symbols. Ask your child to share our state dog, muffin, and insect!
STEM Challenges... Each Friday we have been doing a STEM challenge. The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) include Physical Science, Life Science, Earth/Space Science, and Engineering Design for Grades K to 12. Our triad (Mrs. Watson, Mrs. Sheehan, & Mr. Kuehl) have decided to kick off the year with weekly STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) challenges to encourage classmates to work together and problem solve. Hopefully, you have heard a little about what we have been doing! Our first week teams had to design and build the longest paper chain using limited supplies and time.
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| Check out these amazing paper chains! |
Last week teams were asked to build the tallest free standing tower of cups. Each team was given 50 cups and 15 minutes! Team work and patience were KEY to this challenge! It took VERY STEADY HANDS!
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| Hard at work! |
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| and the WINNERS were! |
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