Ninety-Fifth Day

We accomplished a lot today. We reviewed long-u and long-oo spellings. We read the first selection of our games unit entitled Piggle by Bonsall. We learned that not all games, while still fun, necessarily have a winner. Someone offered tag and jump rope as other examples of games without clear winners. We devised a list of rules for the game Piggle. Each table had the chance to play the game and then share out their results which were then posted on the concept/question board. We then made our first Brace Map, our fifth type of thinking map. While Tree Maps are used to classify various nouns, objects, words, etc. into categories, a Brace Map is used to break up one particular noun into its various parts.

In math we worked on two step problems which closes our current unit. We will take the test for this unit tomorrow.

For social studies we worked on neighborhood maps. At this point in the year I like to suggest that parents direct students to a mapping program on the Internet and locate your home's satellite photograph. Magnify the view to approximately 100ft/inch. Size to show their block and a portion of surrounding blocks. Have your child make a simple map with legend (key) under your direction but in their hand. On your child's map, buildings could be shown as simple rectangles. Print a view of the satellite picture and attach to the hand-drawn map and send with your child to class.

We will be breaking many years of tradition this year by changing our 100th day celebration activities. Hopefully we will still be able to make a memorable impact and we will still share treats in the afternoon.