Martin Luther King
The students finished researching the life of Martin Luther King Jr. for the biographies we were working on. They recorded events from his childhood and his adulthood, and they also noted his life achievements (winning the Nobel Peace Prize!) as well as powerful quotes to remember. The children worked to then organize their facts into paragraphs. They did a terrific job! They learned to indent new paragraphs, as well as to begin with a catchy opening and a strong closing sentence. Their handwritten work turned out really nice and can be found hanging in the hallway outside our classroom.
New Year Resolutions
The children and I watched a cute "Kid President" clip on You Tube. In it, Kid President challenges his viewers to be the best they can be in 2015 and gives some ideas of how to do that. The children came up with a class list of ways they felt they could improve themselves. These ideas included eating healthier foods, being kind to the elderly, being more appreciative of the things our parents do for us, showing kindness towards brothers and sisters, and finding a skill that we want to spend more time practicing.
Reading
The children continue to meet with their guided reading groups. We also shared a whole group text called "Goose's Story." In this story, a poor goose finds itself injured and loses its foot. It needs to learn how to adapt and become independent despite its injury. The other geese judge this poor goose based on its appearance, and stay away from it because it is different. The skill we reviewed this week was cause and effect. The children did a nice job identifying how one event from the story led to others.
Text Talk
We continued our practice with the words from Grandpa's Teeth. The word winner of the week was.... sleuth!
Math
We practiced subtraction with re-grouping this week! The children learned a little rhyme to help them remember the process: "More on top, DON'T STOP. More on the floor? GO NEXT DOOR AND GET 10 MORE." As we strengthened the skill of re-grouping, we also started drilling our basic subtraction facts, in order to begin to memorize them.
Also during math, the children were practicing making equal groups of items. We are beginning to lay the foundation for learning multiplication and division!
Science
The children are loving our rock unit so far! We have begun identifying properties that are associated with rocks, so that our descriptions can be as accurate as possible. We learned about the 3 main types of rocks: Igneous (rocks that form when melted rock cools and hardens above and below ground, Sedimentary (rocks that form when layers of sediment are pressed and cemented over time) and metamorphic (rocks that form when other rocks are heated and squeezed together inside the earth. The children are really looking forward to their in-school field trip next week! Thank you so much for helping us provide an engaging, hands-on experience like this one for the kids!
Cursive
Our cursive lessons are approaching! I am really encouraging the children to focus on their printed handwriting as we look ahead to begin the transition to learning cursive! The quality of the children's written work has improved so much in such a short time. It's really great to see!
Star Student
Our star student this week was Carson. Carson did an experiment that involved a color wheel that blended several colors together. We were happy to welcome Carson's dad to our classroom on Friday afternoon to assist Carson with his star student responsibilities.
No School
Remember, there is no school for the children on both Monday and Tuesday next week! On Monday we honor the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., and on Tuesday the teachers will be hard at work at a school improvement day. Enjoy the extra long weekend!
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