First Week of School was filled with Learning Opportunities!

Reminders:
No School on Monday for Labor Day.
Reading/Math Logs due on Tuesday.
Back to School Night on Thursday, September 5 at 6:00 in the cafeteria.
Grandparent's Day on Friday, September 6. Our lunch time is 11:55-12:25.

Our first week of school was full of learning about each other and our classroom. We learned about our expectations for reading and writing workshop, ways we share strategies in math, and how we treat others in our classroom, our school, and everywhere! We respect each other, learn from each other, and share our ideas and thoughts. We are going to have a great year!

In reading, we read and discussed many books that had strong characters and interesting interactions among characters. We enjoyed books like, Bully, Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon, Wolf!, and Amazing Grace. We discussed internal and external characteristics and the theme or author's message and genres using these books. The children independently read a traditional pourquoi story called The Cat's Purr. Pourquoi means "why" in French and pourquoi stories were created by various cultures to explain things in nature or why things were the way they were. This story told about why cats purr. The children read the story then wrote me a letter telling a short summary of the book, how the characters changed in the story their favorite parts, why they liked that part, and their thoughts about the book's title. The children also read independently daily and I conferenced with them about their book choices and had a conversation about their reading. We began reading the novel Wonder together. This is an amazing book about the life of a 10 year old boy with facial abnormalities. It leads itself to many discussions about literary content as well as life lessons. Next week, we will continue reading different genres, use strategies to monitor our comprehension, and write responses about our reading.

In writing, we discussed a quote about not giving up and discussed the definition of the word, persevere. Then the children wrote a personal narrative about a time that they showed perseverance. We also created individual Enthusiasm Webs and Frustration Webs. We brainstormed things that make us really happy and excited as well as things that make us frustrated. We will use these webs to help us with ideas for future writing. The book, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, helped us think of memories in new ways and record those for future writing as well. Our first published piece of writing will be our important poems. We are drafting poems using similes, metaphors, and sensory descriptions to explain something that is important to each of us. Next week, we will conference individually, revise, edit, publish, and illustrate these poems. Then we will continue gathering entries for personal narratives.

In math, we are learning about place value and problem solving. We played many games such as greatest number wins and guess my number. We found large numbers in everyday life, wrote numbers in standard form, word form, and expanded form, and used base ten blocks to visually represent numbers. Using hundred boards, fifty boards, and eighty boards, we found patterns and used addition and subtraction to figure out unknown numbers. Playing with numbers in this way helps us to better grasp the base ten system and understand place value. Problem solving strategies were shared throughout the week using our document camera. We talked about effective and efficient strategies and learning from mistakes. We will continue to work on place value and problem solving next week.

In science, we talked about science safety and began writing an imaginative story from the point of view of a safety tool. (goggles, apron, gloves, eye/face wash, fire blanket, or fire extinguisher). We will continue these stories next week and explore science tools.

In social studies, we began learning about the regions of Texas by sharing photos of ourselves all around the state. We will examine characteristics of each region and its resources by going on a virtual bus tour of the state. We will also practice reading maps and features of maps. Learning and drawing conclusions by examining primary source documents is an aspect that we will be implementing in social studies this year. We began by examining documents (photos, map, girl scout sash, etc...) from my life to learn about me. The children will use primary source items (or photos or drawings of them) to decorate their writer's notebooks. We will examine each of these to learn more about each other as well as learning about primary sources.

I look forward to seeing our parents on Thursday for our Back to School Night and meeting grandparents on Friday for Grandparent's Day.

Thank you for a great week. Contact me with any questions or concerns.