Week Ending February 9

It seems like Christmas just ended, but Valentine's Day is already quickly approaching. We're looking forward to our class party coming up on the 14th. In the meantime, the learning doesn't stop in our busy room. Here's what we discovered this week.

READING-  We read Aero and Officer Mike, a non-fictional narrative that highlighted the work of animal helpers in our community. Students focused on identifying the main idea and supporting details.

#15 and # 6 buddy read a passage about

Common Core State Standard 

How you can help at home: Continue to encourage your child to read a "just-right" book at home at least five nights a week for a minimum of 30 minutes a night. Encourage your child to choose from a variety of genres. For example, is a history buff that generally chooses narratives about the Civil War, then encourage him or her to select a fantasy book or a fairy tale. Periodically, ask your child to explain in ten words or less what the passage was mostly about. What details in the story make them think that?

WRITING; We worked in small groups to analyze a prompt for two different passages. We looked for clues within the prompt to help us figure out the exact task e.g. are we expected to write an expository, persuasive, or narrative response to the prompt? We determined we needed to write an opinion persuading the reader whether or not a guinea pig makes a good pet for apartment dwellers. We read the two articles multiple times highlighting only those pieces of text evidence that directly responded to the prompt. We identified other bits of information as interesting, but extra. We wrote notes in the margin explaining our reasoning for selecting specific pieces of text. 

#4 and #5 collaborate on a reading response

Common Core State Standard

How you can help at home. Look for opportunities to allow your child to express an opinion. "Do you want to read Harry Potter or Diary of a Wimpy Kid?"   Then ask them to support their preference with reasons i.e. "I want to read Harry Potter because I think it's at my reading level. Also, I like fantasy books, and I'm curious about boarding schools."

grammar: subject pronoun and verb agreement, irregular verbs, 

spelling: words with r-controlled vowels e.g. car, her, bird, or, nurse, -im and -in prefixes, subjects and predicates.

MATH: We are reviewing triple digit addition with regrouping. Most students are familiar with the standard algorithm used to solve these problems. This is ideal. That said, we are currently practicing another, some might say more laborious, method. We are practicing the Show All Totals method. You can find a link to a brief Homework Helpler tutorial here if you are unfamiliar with this method. This method does an excellent job of demonstrating the role place value plays in regrouping. It strengthens the students' number sense. This is important because it allows students to return to the standard algorithm with a concrete understanding of why the standard algorithm works. 

Untitled from Jannette Rotz on Vimeo.

Common Core State Standard

How you can help at home. Familiarize yourself with the Show All Totals if you're not already familiar with it. Watch the Homework Helper tutorial if you need, too. Encourage your child to use this method when completing homework for the time being. 

SCIENCE: We finished up our first Investigation focusing on forces. We learned that forces are pushes or pulls that have direction. When forces are balanced, objects remain at rest. Unbalanced forces cause objects.

We discovered that as magnets are combined the magnetic field extends.  We began our second Investigation by building various wheel-and-axle systems and observing how variations in design lead to various yet predictable paths of motion.

Next Generation Science Standards

And this is just one reason we love our administrators. During one of our regularly scheduled brain breaks, Mrs. B joined in and amazed us all with her exceptional dance moves.vimeo.com/255126364