Monday, November 12, 2012

Friday, November 9th



Word Study
This week we looked closely at word endings/spelling patterns.  Students sorted words by these endings.  The endings all included silent e.  To read these words fluently students must be able to look beyond the first letters of the word to solve it.  In our discussions we stressed the importance of our word study carrying over to our daily spelling.  

Interactive Read Alouds
This week we used a Frog and Toad story to continue our learning on visualization.  We are finding that if we listen carefully for key words it helps us build our mental images.  Partners are enjoying sharing the pictures they’ve created in their minds with each other.  We also revisited our Poppleton chapter from last week and used a venn diagram to compare the story with Frog and Toad.
To add to our visualization unit we used a fun song called “The Princess Who Saved Herself” by Jonathon Coulton. Students listened to this song (story) several times and then illustrated part of the song.  We’ll be sharing this with families soon.

Reader’s Workshop
We are beginning our study of dialogue.  Your child should be able to tell you what dialogue is and what types of books have it.  Students searched their books during independent reading for examples of dialogue.  They also are learning about patterns of books that use dialogue.  We used Cynthia Rylant books to compare how authors choose to use or not to use dialogue in a book.  It was interesting to see that her series Mr. Putter and Tabby  uses no or very little dialogue in them while Henry and Mudge books seemed full of dialogue.  This study will continue for several weeks.

Writer’s Workshop
Though we haven’t yet completed our poetry unit, we took a brief break this week learning about “how to” writing.  We used making grilled cheese sandwiches as a model for this type of writing.  Then students brainstormed something they were experts with and wrote their own “how to” pieces. Next, we asked students to write a how to on something they had to guess about…how to cook a turkey!  We will be compiling this writing for a class book to share in the new future.
Additionally, our poets are working on choosing a poem to revise and edit for a class poetry book.  We will work more on this over the next two weeks.

Math Workshop
Our unit 3 is now complete and we’re moving on to unit 4 working more with addition and subtraction.  We continued to work on making change throughout the week as students will need many experiences to better grasp the concept.  We used number stories with data charts to practice the change to more concept.  Students are listening to determine the outcome of a number story.  Our explorations this week included working with a thermometer (along with icy and hot water cups), using attribute blocks to sort and play “what’s my rule”, students also practiced stamping with coins and counting already stamped coins.  My students have come to expect and look forward to our Friday explorations!  Today when I asked students to take out journals for math, 3 quickly panicked and ran up to me asking why we weren’t doing explorations.  Of course once I explained the explorations and they realized they needed journal pages for some they were all smiles.

Social Studies
This week we looked at both good and bad changes in a community.  Ask your child about the story we read that had significant changes called Letting Swift River Go.

Updates:
·        Thursday, November 15th: NO SCHOOL, parent-teacher conferences
·        Friday, November 16th:  Pajama day at Dublin!  Please consider donating a new pair of pajamas for a child in need.  For every pair of pajamas donated, Scholastic book club will donate a book for that child as well.   In addition all Dublin students are invited to wear pajamas that day as well. 

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