September 28, 2012

Today was a great day, however we had a different lunch.  We traded lunches with fifth grade due to a trip they had to take to High School across the street.  I am sorry for not posting it on the blog yesterday, or letting the class know.  We did our reading and had CAFE time.  We completed make up work and also made sure to have our connections sheet finished before heading home.  Please while reading have your child model how to make connections while reading.  This will enable them to retain comprehension and build their reading level.  I am working hard to have all them writing short stories about themselves and we are moving to small moments in our life.  I would love if you would point out something you or they do together throughout week that leads to a write able moment.  This will help them see where stories come from, examples if you go to a special place, game, movie,...etc.  We started our unit on number sense.  We played our lunchbox game, where we read a math problem and try to work it out. Also we played the secret number game, this is where I tel them I am thinking of a number can they guess it?  I told you we had a busy day, we even ate lunch in the class.  The final thing was we got a treat from Courtney for her birthday, THANKS!!

September 27, 2012

HAPPY BIRTHDAY COURTNEY!!!!  Today was Courtney's birthday and we all had a pretty good day.  We did our reading and CAFE station time.  We discussed asking questions while reading and locating answers in the text.  In reading groups Ms. Wolfean is working on parts of the text, foe non-fiction books.  We had a time assessment test, so Ms. Wolfean could collect data.  She also needs to have a focus for what should be retaught.  We then completed our science capsule experiment.  The students were shocked at how long it really took without be able to use their hands.  They loved watching it change into different sea animals, and some had desert ones.  We will be completing this activity tomorrow and moving onto our next experiment. 

September 26,2012

We had a "BATTY" day, because tonight we will be heading to watch the bats fly.  7:00 PM is the time and NAPA Parts at I35 frontage road just past McNeil is where to be.  I hope to see you there, ready for an adventure to write about the next day.  We had our Cafe time and moved right into writing about if we were a bat.  Then we silently walked outside to have a break and play.  After returning from recess we began our science and math activity.  We made a Venn Diagram comparing bats to birds.  We watched a video on bats then wrote in our science notebook about the interesting facts we learned from it.  We shared as class our findings then we attended PE.  They exercised and were hot when I picked them up.  I look forward to seeing you tonight.

September 25, 2012

Today we were lucky enough to receive a classroom student helper.  She is in a class, in high school, which will allow her to come to our class twice a week.  She is taking the class to see if teaching might be something she would like to do in the future.  She wants to become a second grade teacher.  We are looking forward to her support.  We discussed proof from the text, to back up our findings.  Readers make questions in their head and we have to find the answers in our text, this is proof from the text.  We did our CAFE stations and then we went to the library for check out.  We learned we will be using the computer to sign in at the library.  Then we came back to class and we began writing.  We are still discussing our noticing of what excellent writers do to their writing.  Then we moved onto science and began our first experiment, but not before we had to set up our science notebooks and make a plan.  We look forward to seeing what the capsules will turn in to?  Please ask them about their day, adn what they think thier science experiment will be?

September 24, 2012

Today was a fantastic day, we all seemed rested and ready to learn.  We started off with reading learning how to build our fluency and use expression to guide our reading.  We discussed having a conversation with our books.  We practiced this strategy for a bit in the class and headed to CAFE stations.  Ask your child about their CAFE time.  Then we discussed what writers do in their writing.  They not only use words they use punctuation marks, capital letters, and complete thoughts to tie in their ideas.  We discussed our noticing we found in books and discussed them as a class.  Then it was time for a break and off to recess we went.  After our play time we got right back to work and continued to learn how to write time to the hour and half hour.  The class is finally, well most, are getting how to write the times.  We watched a video on time and began our science lesson.  We discussed what a scientist is and their preception on what one looks like is interesting.  They all pretty much thought of a mad scientist type and they all mix chemicals.  We discussed that a scientist explores the natural world to discover to new knowledge that was not there before.

September 21, 2012

They are to get their Science notebook signed, this is due to safety in the class.  I like to have the parents involved in knowing the rules too.  I have had mothers come in and we are all wearing goggles, for safety.  I want them to know you will also be a partner in their safety.  We did our reading groups and had our cafe talk discussing books.  we also focused our attention to the connections we make to our reading.  We also read independently in our dessert books, they love them.  Ask your child about their dessert book?  We made a fold able book about our self to display in the halls.  This project is cute because the students will come home with traits that others in the class think about them. This project will take one more day to complete.   We reviewed how to write time to the hour and half hour.  Then we left our day with creating our Science notebooks. 

September 20,2012

Today was a fantastic day, we got through all our planned activities.  We are working hard on staying quiet in the halls and we will continue to make sure to respect others.  We did two rotations of reading work stations and we discussed connections we have in books we are reading.  We shared about how connections help us build on our comprehension as a reader.  We continued our CGI problems in math and are doing one problem tonight at home.  I look forward to seeing what they do for you and hearing about it.  Then we continued to discuss telling time to the hour and half hour.  Some students are having trouble and others seem to grasp it.  We completed our National symbols unit and we will be moving on to Science and experiments. YEAH