One Hundred-Second Day

Worked hard today. Again we reviewed inflectional endings. We then reviewed initial consonant clusters. Then we pantomimed the actions suggested by our Bath Flow Map. Together we used the Bath Brace Map and the Bath Flow Map to write an expository descriptive essay. We then wrote our own essay using our own Brace and Flow Maps.

We took our Topic 15 math test followed by our social studies map test.

Ninety-Ninth Day

FWe are ready for our Birthday Celebration! Tomorrow's our big day.

Today we began The Big Team Relay Race. We will work on making predictions and summarizing as a comprehension strategies. Tomorrow we will work on comprehension skills. For this story we will focus on the idea of teamwork. We discussed the meaning of the word relay. A review of the /ow/ spellings for blending led to a discussion of the meaning of the words: fowl, stout, and louse. We created a Brace Map for the the noun 'bath'. We then made our first Flow Map and sequenced taking a bath. These prewriting steps will assist students in formulating ideas for explaining a process/activity to another person.

In math we used related addition facts to help with subtraction.

Hope to see you at Literacy Night tonight.

Ninety-Eighth Day

Today we finished reading Jafta. We reviewed doubling consonants before inflectional endings. We discussed and worked with some contractions. We created our second Brace Map together for a game we played today called Griddle Cakes. We then each created our own Brace Map for one of our favorite games, Four Corners.

In math we used addition to solve subtraction problems. We are almost ready to take our first timed addition fact test.

Reminder: we will likely have our social studies map test on Friday.

In science we discussed air resistance and pressure and made parachutes to demonstrate these ideas.

Hope to see you tomorrow evening at the literacy night. There will be 3 sessions following dinner. In my first session I will cover Thinking Maps for those parents who want to take a more detailed look at these ideas. The next 2 sessions I will show how to make accordian books which are quite useful for a number of purposes.

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.