Mrs. Watson's Weekly: Day 7... Reading, Writing, Routines (and MATH!)

What's Been Happening in Room 102?

A lot! In our first seven days, we have done some GET TO KNOW you activities that included a HUMAN treasure hunt, MATH about ME (see picture) and written in our response journals about ourselves and describing our bedrooms.

Journal Response

Math about ME posters!

We have read a lot of books. We are working on PLACE VALUE of numbers including making and saying large numbers. We discussed WORD FORM, STANDARD FORM, and EXPANDED FORM. Students really enjoyed the activities we did playing Beat It and Place Value Pockets.

Beat It with 3 and 4 digit numbers!

Place Value Pockets

Reviewing Classroom Routines and Expectations

Our class READ ALOUD list!

We have started Reading Workshop and are working on navigating our classroom library, choosing JUST RIGHT books, and increasing our reading stamina. This class LOVES to read! And they are learning that READING is THINKING!

Students were asked to STOP and SHARE their thinking.

We are also reviewing HANDWRITING! Some of our friends still need some review of capital and lower case letters and which letters dip below the line like "j, g, p, q, y". We are working on some manuscript practice before we start CURSIVE writing!

Looking good!

We learned about HISTORY being anything that happened in the PAST... even what you ate for breakfast! We talked about LOCAL history - which happens close to home. We will be learning about Medfield later in the year. Students brainstormed ways they could learn about history and those included:

talking to an expert
visiting a museum
reading a book
searching (safely) online
visiting a historical site
looking at artifacts

We learned about our classmates when they brought in their own artifact bags. We found we have a lot in common... like sports that we like, pets we have or lost, collections we have, and families that we love!

We had an OPEN CIRCLE on Monday about being a member of a GROUP and what responsibilities go along with that. Groups included families, teams, clubs, classrooms, and schools. We discussed including others and being respectful of people's feelings.

On Fridays in September we do a STEM challenge. STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Students are placed in groups to complete a challenge. Last week they had to create the longest paper chain in the time allowed. This week they had a MARSHMALLOW CHALLENGE. They had to use 20 pieces of pasta, one yard of tape and one yard of string, along with scissors to build the tallest free standing structure to support a marshmallow at the top. We weren't very successful in our final efforts but we discussed what we COULD do to be successful.