I hope everyone enjoyed their nice long weekend. Thankfully the weather has cooled down. Our classroom felt incredible today!
Here are some of highlights of our week:
Math- We continued to look at place value with ones, tens, and hundreds. Next week we will add the thousands place and start to add and subtract 3-digit numbers. A challenge in the past has been to determine the expanded form of a number (ie. 345 would be 300+40+5=345). We also took at look at standard form (ie. 145) and the word form (ie. one hundred forty-five).
Reading- Our story this week was Lon Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China. A Chinese version of the famous tale, this story teaches the important message of triumph of courage and cleverness over evil. Dramatic illustrations that incorporate techniques used in ancient Chinese panel art make this selection even more interesting. Strategies we looked at with this story was comparing and contrasting other versions of Little Red Riding Hood and analyzing character and plot, as well as determining the moods used to tell the story.
Math- We continued to look at place value with ones, tens, and hundreds. Next week we will add the thousands place and start to add and subtract 3-digit numbers. A challenge in the past has been to determine the expanded form of a number (ie. 345 would be 300+40+5=345). We also took at look at standard form (ie. 145) and the word form (ie. one hundred forty-five).
Reading- Our story this week was Lon Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China. A Chinese version of the famous tale, this story teaches the important message of triumph of courage and cleverness over evil. Dramatic illustrations that incorporate techniques used in ancient Chinese panel art make this selection even more interesting. Strategies we looked at with this story was comparing and contrasting other versions of Little Red Riding Hood and analyzing character and plot, as well as determining the moods used to tell the story.
Text Talk- Text Talk is a program that provides robust vocabulary instruction tied closely to comprehension. With this program, I will read aloud a picture book stopping at key places where we will discuss comprehension questions, check for understanding, or review vocabulary words. Each day of the week, we will complete some fun short activities using these vocabulary words in and out of context with the book, then take a multiple choice quiz. This week we read Wolf! by Becky Bloom. In the book, A wolf trades in his "growl" for "spoken words" in order to impress a group of educated farmyard animals he has met. He goes to school and shows a lot of perseverance to become a great reader whom everyone wants to listen to. Vocabulary words we
discussed this week are concentrate, industrious, achieve, passion, confidence, and emergency.
Writing- We completed our last "free response" activities for a while. We read poems by Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein, both whom I greatly love reading. Enjoy! :)
Writing- We completed our last "free response" activities for a while. We read poems by Jack Prelutsky and Shel Silverstein, both whom I greatly love reading. Enjoy! :)
Tuesday we responded to:
"LAST NIGHT I DREAMED OF CHICKENS"
Last night I dreamed of chickens,
there were chickens everywhere.
They were standing on my stomach,
they were nesting in my hair,
they were pecking at my pillow,
they were hopping on my head,
they were ruffling up their feathers
as they raced about my bed.
They were on the chairs and tables,
they were on the chandeliers,
they were roosting in the corners,
they were clucking in my ears.
There were chickens, chickens, chickens
for as far as I could see...
when I woke today, I noticed
there were eggs on top of me.
Jack Prelutsky
Last night I dreamed of chickens,
there were chickens everywhere.
They were standing on my stomach,
they were nesting in my hair,
they were pecking at my pillow,
they were hopping on my head,
they were ruffling up their feathers
as they raced about my bed.
They were on the chairs and tables,
they were on the chandeliers,
they were roosting in the corners,
they were clucking in my ears.
There were chickens, chickens, chickens
for as far as I could see...
when I woke today, I noticed
there were eggs on top of me.
Jack Prelutsky
Wednesday we responded to:
"Smart"
My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!
And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes -- I guess he don't know
That three is more than two!
Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just 'cause he can't see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!
And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!
And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head--
Too proud of me to speak!
- Shel Silverstein
Thursday we responded to:
Today we responded to
My dad gave me one dollar bill
'Cause I'm his smartest son,
And I swapped it for two shiny quarters
'Cause two is more than one!
And then I took the quarters
And traded them to Lou
For three dimes -- I guess he don't know
That three is more than two!
Just then, along came old blind Bates
And just 'cause he can't see
He gave me four nickels for my three dimes,
And four is more than three!
And I took the nickels to Hiram Coombs
Down at the seed-feed store,
And the fool gave me five pennies for them,
And five is more than four!
And then I went and showed my dad,
And he got red in the cheeks
And closed his eyes and shook his head--
Too proud of me to speak!
- Shel Silverstein
Thursday we responded to:
"Jimmy Jet And His TV Set"
by Shel Silverstein
I'll tell you the story of Jimmy Jet --
And you know what I tell you is true.
He loved to watch his TV set
Almost as much as you.
And you know what I tell you is true.
He loved to watch his TV set
Almost as much as you.
He watched all day, he watched all night
Till he grew pale and lean,
From "The Early Show" to "The Late Late Show"
And all the shows between.
Till he grew pale and lean,
From "The Early Show" to "The Late Late Show"
And all the shows between.
He watched till his eyes were frozen wide,
And his bottom grew into his chair.
And his chin turned into a tuning dial,
And antennae grew out of his hair.
And his bottom grew into his chair.
And his chin turned into a tuning dial,
And antennae grew out of his hair.
And his brains turned into TV tubes,
And his face to a TV screen.
And two knobs saying "VERT." and "HORIZ."
Grew where his ears had been.
And his face to a TV screen.
And two knobs saying "VERT." and "HORIZ."
Grew where his ears had been.
And he grew a plug that looked like a tail
So we plugged in little Jim.
And now instead of him watching TV
We all sit around and watch him.
So we plugged in little Jim.
And now instead of him watching TV
We all sit around and watch him.
Today we responded to
"Spaghetti" by Shel Silverstein
Spaghetti, spaghetti, all over the place,
Up to my elbows—up to my face,
Over the carpet and under the chairs,
Into the hammock and wound round the stairs,
Filling the bathtub and covering the desk,
Making the sofa a mad mushy mess.
The party is ruined, I’m terribly worried,
The guests have all left (unless they’re all buried).
I told them, “Bring presents.” I said, “Throw confetti.”
I guess they heard wrong
‘Cause they all threw spaghetti!
Science- This week we looked at the properties (color, size, texture, odor) of a dry lima bean and one that was soaked over night in water. The kids were amazed how much they grew over night. After recording their properties we took the lima bean apart and took a look inside. The students located the seed coat (used for protection, like our coat in the winter), the cotyledon (the embryo's food source), the embryo (baby plant), and the leaves of the embryo can even be spotted. Today we planted our Brassica Rapa plants also known as Wisconsin Fast Plants. Picture attached are of our "quads" (containers of 4) that we planted and have under a light and on water tubs 24 hours a day minus the time we will take to observe and discuss them growing. 
Assessments- a lot of our beginning of the year assessments are finally coming to an end. Your child had their DIBELS assessment this past week. An additional component of this test is a retelling section. For this section, your child had a minute to retell everything they could remember that happened in the passage they read during their one minute DIBELS timing. In the past a student has simply been asked to read as fast as they could and we determined their rate. Two years ago we added a DAZE, comprehension in sentences component which I believe starts in third grade so was new to all the kids. They looked at me rather strange while I was giving the directions. :) I am sure I will get a chance to report out scores soon!
Hope you have a wonderful weekend. I am looking forward to watching Iowa
State win on Saturday! :) I just had to throw it in!
Mrs. Jodie Yuska
