October 30th

Reading & Writing: 

The mentor text that we studied closely was Yeh-Shen. While taking a closer look at this story, we practiced identifying the main character’s actions in order to form opinions about what type of character she is. We learned about positive and negative character traits, and we determined that Yeh-Shen demonstrates positive character traits. We also practiced finding key evidence from the text to support the opinions we formed.

Long e was the main focus of our phonics instruction this week. We learned about different spelling patterns that make the long e sound, and we practiced reading and writing long e words. 

Math: 

Double digit subtraction with and without regrouping has been a fun concept to learn and practice in class. We explored different strategies to solve these problems including: using base ten blocks, number lines, and traditional way of writing the problem vertically to show our regrouping by crossing out numbers. 

Social Studies:

This week the students were given the task to design a class flag and then present it to our class. They did a great job of explaining the symbols they chose to put on their flags. We practiced using our level 3 speaker voices, eye contact, and good listening skills. 

 

October 19th

Reading: This week we began unit 2 of our ELA program, Benchmark Advanced.  The focus of this unit is studying characters who face challenges. This week our learning targets were focused on retelling, story elements, and determining the central message of a story called “ The Foolish Milkmaid.”

Writing: We began our opinion writing unit.  We have learned what opinion writing is, and we learned about the parts of an opinion essay.  As we continue to develop this type of writing, the students will learn how to use text evidence to support their opinions. 

Math: In math we started learning strategies to solve 2 digit addition problems.  Some of the strategies we worked on include writing the problem vertically to show our regrouping, using tens and ones cubes, and using a number line.

Unity Week: We enjoyed celebrating Unity Week! Here are a few pictures from our Unity Day Parade and our virtual author visit.

Fall Party: Thank you very much to everyone who helped out with our Fall Party! The students had a great time! 

October 15th

 Writing: This week we worked on writing our own informational piece about grasslands using the close reading text that we studied during our reading lessons. We also completed a short write about coral reefs. We focused on including a topic sentence, strong supporting details, and a concluding sentence. 

We enjoyed making placemats with kind messages for the residents at a local nursing home. We are sure that our beautiful placemats will spread some joy!

Reading: This week in reading we read a story about a mouse who goes on an adventure outside of his cage. Each day we had a new learning focus.  We identified the central message of the story and what happened in the beginning, middle and end of the story. We also worked on creating mental images as we read.

Thank you for the donations to our classroom ewallet! We were able to purchase some fun new books for our classroom library!

Math: We finished up learning about multi-step word problems, and then we took our unit 1 test. The unit test covered addition strategies, subtraction strategies, one step word problems, two step word problems, and graphing.

October 6th

Writing: At the start of this week students were introduced to an informative writing prompt and checklist. Each student will be asked to write about the grassland habitat.  We then took notes using a reading passage and while watching a short video about the grasslands.  We wrapped up the week by organizing our facts into similar parts. 

Reading: This week in reading we read an article about 3 different habitats (grasslands, rainforests, and coral reefs).  Each day we had a new learning focus.  We identified the main idea and key details of each paragraph, determined what new information we could learn from the photos and captions, learned about capitalizing proper nouns, and then compared and contrasted this week's article with the article we read last week about Antarctica.  

 

Math:  In math we finished up our first set of lessons on graphing (we will come back to graphing and learn about line plots later in the school year) and answering questions on a set of data.  Then we began our new set of lessons on solving 2 step word problems.  Students have learned different strategies to solve 2 step word problems.  They are: drawing a bar model, drawing a 10 frame picture, using a number line, and writing equations.  

Science: This week we continued our plant unit with learning about how seeds can travel. We observed different seeds, and then we determined if they were more likely to travel by wind, water, or animal. 

Second Steps: Our most recent social emotional learning lessons have been about using positive self talk along with good listening skills. We have had some great conversations about what it means to be respectful to our friends.