Math:
We have finished up the math unit 2 and have moved into, what we call, The Big Dinner. Students are working together to determine how much items cost for our Thanksgiving dinner. Students are told how much 1 pound of turkey, apples, carrots, etc., cost and then they have to determine how much that item will cost if they need to purchase various sizes. This is our way of introducing multiplication. Students are asked if they have 4 packs of juice and each pack has 6 juice boxes how many juice boxes will they end up with. The hope is that they can figure out the number string, 6 + 6 + 6 + 6 and then relate it to 4 x 6 (four groups of six). It is fun to see the lightbulbs go off in their heads! This will finish up before Thanksgiving break! Sooo, ask your child to help plan out how much money you will need when you head to the market to get the groceries!
Writing:
We are continuing our work on our personal narrative stories. We, most recently, worked on developing the "heart" of the story (making the center of the story stand out more by adding more vivid language and details) and knowing when to start new paragraphs. We learned that any time the author changes sub topics, has a new person speaking, or moves forward in time we need to start a new paragraph. Look for this during our publishing party.
Reader's Workshop:
We have finally started reading groups. We are working on noticing character change over time, and making inferences about the characters by using clues from the text and our background knowledge. The students are very strong at retelling, but we want to direct them to being able to tell a 20 word summary. This is challenging as they want to tell ALL the details rather than the most important pieces.
Social Studies:
During SS we are examining maps, we talked about perspective, keys and aerial views. We also heard a story called, Ms. Achusetts. This is about how to remember the shape of Massachusetts. The children drew what they thought was their state and then heard the story, most of their pictures were more accurate after hearing the story of how to remember what Massachusetts looks like. It was a lot of fun to see what they thought as opposed to now knowing. Next week we will build a topographical map of MA.
Science:
Last week we spent more time on trees and their different characteristics. We had Marc Welch, the urban arborist of the City of Newton come and take a nature walk with us. He discussed various topics including how trees limbs do not actually grow up with them, and sometimes they get buried in the trunk as it grows over the limbs.
Mindset:
We will start learning about neurons, making mistakes and learning from them, and how we can make our brains grow. It has been fun to hear the students give each other positive feedback even when they are having a hard time just by introducing our mindset bulletin board in our classroom.
We are having a really great year and we can't wait to see what there is to come!
