FALL IS HERE!
I hope everybody is enjoying this beautiful weather as much as I am. The mornings are crisp and relaxing. Our class celebrated the season with beautiful fall collages. We collected leaves and then melted beautiful fall colors among them. They are gorgeous! We studied various forms of poetry; acrostic, alliteration, haiku, couplets, limericks and free verse. Each child chose a style and wrote a poem. We went to the media center to type our poem on Word and add a fall picture. See standards addressed for this activity posted outside the classroom. They not only wrote poetry but they learned about the functions of the computer. It was an awesome project.
As a follow up to our poetry unit and study of fall we are photographing fall. Students will be organized into groups of 3 -4 students. Each learning team will have a digital camera. We will walk the grounds of GM to discover signs of fall. Each student will take a digital picture that represents fall. The pictures will be printed and each student will write a caption to go with their picture. The essential question for this activity is:
How do captions help us understand a picture and text?
This activity directly relates to how the children read and understand informational text. They soon learn that the pictures are directly related to what they are reading or the main idea.
Science was tons of fun these past 2 weeks. We studied the rock cycle and learned a new song to remember the different types of rocks. During a science lab, we made rocks and then observed the differences of each rock. The next week, we made fossils and reliefs of fossils. We will stop with rocks and minerals for 2 weeks on Tuesday.
Social Studies will begin on Tuesday: The unit of study is Economics. Man o Man do we have some real life examples around us! Ask your students about their Snakes and Donuts production teams. We will conduct Snakes and Donuts every Friday during our earned reward. This is where the students actually experience supply, demand , quality control and working together. I am contemplated a product production activity. This would be where a group of learners would use materials, craft or art items, to produce a product and have a market day. This task is way too big for me so if a parent is willing to help me I will tell you what all is involved. It would be a true to life example of supply and demand.
We will celebrate Columbus Day tomorrow. The students will complete a place mat of Columbus's Adventures for morning work. We will be actively involved in a Promethean activity that helps the students better understand why we celebrate Columbus Day.
Math has been tons of fun this week. Chapter 6 focuses on time. We will have a math test on Wednesday. The sub topics are AM, PM and elapsed time. This skill can be difficult for some children. We have used our classroom clocks to calculate how much time has passed and we even used a linear clock as another way to understand time. We cut out pictures from magazines to represent AM and PM as an additional assessment. A clock that actually has hands on it could be a great holiday gift. (hint) Kid need to start evaluating time. Example: What time should we leave for practice to get there on time? Questions like this will stimulate understanding of time managment and elapsed time. Many times you will see 5 minutes or some other time on the top of your child's homework paper. We estimate how much time assignments will take. The students then time themselves and compare their estimate to the actual length of the assignment.
Time math is going great. HOWEVER: we cannot stop at multiplication. The students need to be practicing their multiplication facts daily. When they have passed their multiplication facts they need to start on division. We need to always be looking ahead. Think of it as a gift you are giving your child. If they learn their facts this year they will be more motivated to attack lengthier assignments as the computation will not slow them down. Fact Buddies will be on Tuesday and Thursday of this week.
Spelling is Unit 9 this week, our word study is homophones. Remember, the students are to chose a different "Spelling Choice" each week. Dear Parents are being completely weekly and I am very pleased that the students now seem to see the challenge question at the bottom.
Read Aloud continues with Danny Champion of The World. We are almost to the end of this exciting book. We wrote our response to literature using this book. The students chose a character and explained reasons why a particular character was both good and bad. This utilized the skill of character analysis where the students actually responded to the character and how it was developed in this book. We wrote these papers in our best handwriting.
Guided reading will continue as well as independent reading and grammar during our guided reading block.
A huge thank you goes to Mrs. Wood for attempting to copy. The machines have been a bit temper mental lately. Thanks to Mrs. Hamel for sending in Fall books to read and for organizing the Fall Ironing Project. Mr. Zath brought some awesome books for reading parent on Friday. Thanks to Mrs. Minor and Mrs. Pietsch for helping with our art project. Thanks to the Minor girls for their cleaning and closing down the classroom on Fridays. It takes a village and due to parent support your kids reap the benefits of a hands on approach to learning. Thanks to all for making our classroom a positive learning community. It is a true pleasure to come to work.
REMINDERS:
Monday: Begin Economics, Columbus Day, Computer lab 1:10-2:10
Tuesday: Picture Day (Moore's Class time is 8:30 AM)
Wednesday: Early Release 12:15
Thursday: Report Cards will come home, Spelling test, fact buddies
Friday: Book Buddies
Monday Oct the 20th is Bus Driver Appreciation Day. (I could not be a bus driver, it is a very hard job that takes a special person) We will make cards in language arts. Every year the kids ,in my classroom, bring in travel size items that a bus driver might use. These items could include small lotion bottles, pack of breath mints or gum, Emory boards, stickers to give the kids that have good behavior or any small item they could keep on their bus to make their day a bit brighter. We will decorate bags and place the items inside for a special treat for the hard working drivers. If you would like to contribute please send your items in anytime before 10/20/08.
Garret was our "Hero of The Week" last week. He enjoyed having his birthday during this week as well. Next week is Seth's turn. We can't to celebrate Seth!
As always have a wonderful week and if you have questions please ask as my door is always open to you.
Word of the week: "economics"
