Gobbling Up Word Problems, the Wampanoag Gazette, A Winter Break Reading Challenge, Clementine, Partial Sums, and Dedicated Digital Natives

Happy New Year!

2015 closed out with festive problem solving, social studies newspaper writing, and reading for information.

Thanksgiving brought an opportunity to use keywords, number sense, and understanding of operations as they composed festive-themed math problems. 

               

            

              

Multiplication Gingerbread Bump offered us practice building our math fact fluency. We roll two die, multiply to find the product, and cover that number on the board. If you calculate the same product again, you can "lock in" that product by placing a second tile on it. The first player to use all 10 tiles wins!

When playing Santa's List, mathematicians had to check that problem cards displayed the correct answer. If it did, the card would be placed on Santa's "Nice List." In the event that the problem had been solved incorrectly, the card would then be placed on Santa's "Naughty List."

Historians worked together to highlight key details about the life of the Wamponoags using our Social Studies text, Massachusetts: Our Home. Next, writers organized their information into top down webs before bringing it all together in the form of news articles for the Wampanoag Gazette.

 

Their articles were then recorded on AudioBoo! Click here to listen to Marissa and Nathan W.'s article about hunting in the forest. Chris and Joao read aloud their article about building wetus here. Shakwan and Bella inform readers about the spring chores that kept the Wampanoags busy. 

Air Holiday took off and travelers ventured to six different countries to learn about the unique holiday traditions. Stops included France, Germany, Israel, Australia, and Sweden. 

Just before vacation, students were introduced to one of my favorite storybook characters--Clementine. Be sure to ask your child what landed her in the principal's office in Chapter 1. 

Congratulations to our December PRIDE award winners. They are true role models!

2016 has been off to a strong start!

Many readers accepted the Winter Break Reading Challenge and read for 150 minutes in creative ways. Some readers read on New Year's Day while others read in pajamas, with grandparents or in the car. This Wednesday, those readers will enjoy a hot chocolate party after school as their reward!

In writing, students have been drafting and publishing their expository pieces. Topics range from bears, wolves, video games, basketball, hockey, tae-kwon-do and football. Writers are in the process of typing their pieces using their Google Docs account. From keyboarding to customizing text, inserting images and tables, these digital natives are taking advantage of this fabulous program.

  

 

Published and in the Author's Chair!

 
 

 In math, we launched with strategies for adding three-digit numbers. We learned how to add using an expanded algorithm to calculate partial sums as well as add on an open number line.

 

Come back soon to read about our S(pecific)M(easurable)ART New Year's resolutions.. 

Air Holiday, Multiplication, Publishing, and Biting in to the Common Core

We closed out 2014 flying aboard Air Holiday and learning about the various holiday traditions around the world. From Italy to Israel, Canada to Australia, students learned about the countries' traditions, gift bringer, decorations, and foods customarily prepared. Passports, photographs, mini books, and in-flight readings provided passengers with information about these diverse traditions. 

 

We were lucky enough to be the first class to venture to Creative Corner-- a new "art studio" at Memorial Park. Once there, students drafted murals on easels to represent similarities and differences between two self-selected countries that had been studied.

We were fortunate enough to enjoy two author visits to Memorial Park in the past few weeks. We loved listening to Kathleen Ready Dayan read her popular book called Cape Cod Bear Goes to Boston. We were surprised to learn how long it took her to revise this book! You can click here to learn more about Dayan and her published books.

Students have been eager to come full circle in the writing process on their personal narratives. Entertaining beginnings, elaborative detail, dialogue, and extended endings make these personal narratives shine. As students revise and then edit their work, they refer to the acronyms ARMS and COPS. See below for what the acronyms represent.

As we dive into more informational texts, we are working on a popular Common Core strategy known as Close Reading that requires us to read text multiple times, each with a unique purpose. We study the author's word choice, the structure of the text, and summarize it for the main idea. Recording our thinking in the margin is a key strategy when performing a Close Read.

In addition, we have used a few of Norman Rockwell's most famous paintings to discuss main idea and appropriate titles for his pieces. What would you name the painting below?

In math we are focusing on multiplication facts and word problems that require multiple steps. Students have enjoyed studying and practicing their Zero Property, Identity Property, 2s, 5s, 9s, and 10s through fun and interactive games on multiplication.com.

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In addition, students are gaining rich experience with problem solving through a program used throughout the district called Exemplars. Word problems of varying difficulty require students to transfer knowledge and apply strategies to solve multi-step problems using rounding, place value, and basic operations. I have already seen great improvement in their problem solving over the past few weeks.

January's trait of the month is perseverance. Both in and out of the classroom students are reminded to try their best, take risks, and not give up when facing challenges. This rings especially true in math. Students often seek immediate assistance when they are faced with a word problem in their math assignments. I encourage them to reread, search for keywords, use pictures or tables, and stick with it. :)

In January, we return to multiplication learning our 3s, 4s, 6s, 7s, and 8s using some rhymes and songs to help us. We will continue our focus on informational texts using the Close Reading strategy. In writing, we will continue to publish our personal narratives, and begin our expository writing. We'll talk about goals and resolutions and dive right back in!

Halfway Day, Wordly Wise, MLK, News-O-Matic App, Close Reading, Division, and Homework Club

What a snowy few weeks we have had! We welcomed Halfway Day with a few puzzlers--half of a cup, half a dozen, and half a yard. In writing, we wrote the beginnings of stories and swapped with a writing partner who wrote the other half of the story. Some stories were awfully silly! Here, Aly and Billy finish each other's stories.

Breaking from spelling for a week, we returned to Wordly Wise. We used top-down webs to record the unique parts of speech and meanings of multiple meaning words and homophones such as foul. These words often appear in our reading and knowing their parts of speech and meaning can help us better understand the text.

 

In our study of Martin Luther King Jr. we read aloud My Brother Martin and Martin's Big Words. We completed KWL charts recording facts we know, wanted to know, and learned about him. Next, we used text evidence to assign character traits to Martin and members of his family. Context clues and our background knowledge helped us complete chapters of an informational book about Martin's life. Our final task involved assigning an appropriate title to each chapter based on the text's main idea.

Studying informational texts often brings new and unfamiliar words. Using context clues help us figure out the meaning of those words. Often, the author shares a direct definition, an example, synonyms, antonyms, or use word parts. 

After reading an article about whales and fish, their similarities and differences, readers shared their knowledge and wonderings in their Reader Response Journals (RRJs). They used evidence based terms such as "The author stated..." "On page ______.." "From the reading I know that.." and "According to the text..."

During Reader's Workshop, students "snacked on multiple meaning words." Listening to context clues, students had to determine the meaning of the homophone. If they answered correctly, they earned a "snack" card. Well done readers!

Later, readers sorted words with suffixes and matching sentences into the correct Suffix House. They then used these words in their own sentences. Word parts sure can help us decode and define!

A Scholastic News article about the typhoon in the Philippines led us on a text features walk. We revised our predictions about the article's main idea after reading the text. We skimmed the article entitled Sniffing for Slime to predict the genre and author's purpose. We learned that dogs are being used to catch invasive snails that have recently come to Florida and are destroying many important crops there.

 

This week we began work on a strategy that empowers readers to dig deeper into text. Called "Close Reading," students "read with a pencil" annotating passages with symbols and thoughts in the margin. Revisiting the text for multiple reads encourages students to read the text for multiple purposes. We initially read a text for the main idea marking up the text using symbols to show our thinking and questions. Next, we read the text for important vocabulary, author's purpose, and the text structure. Finally, we revisit the text to answer text-dependent questions searching for evidence.

 

Topic 8 has extended our work with division. We've learned 4 rules for dividing with 0 and 1, and have been using fact families to solve multiplication and division equations.

Kelly and Bryan work together as math partners as they use solve division problems where 0 is the dividend and 1 is the divisor or quotient.

Billy and Sean are loving our new lap desks!

Homework Club meets every Tuesday after school, and we've had a crowd each week! You'll hear an awful lot of math talk around this room!

Wrapping up our science unit on Matter, students used a number of resources to create Molecule Meal Menus being sure to serve up solids, liquids, gases, mixtures, solutions, and a chemical change. These chefs sure brought their knowledge to the table!

A new app that has become quite popular in Room 16 is News-O-Matic. Here, students can read informational articles relating to current events. This interactive app allows students to dig deeper into the world's major headlines.

Writers are drafting, editing, and revising their opinion pieces. Here, Mike U. chooses a transition word or phrase to kick off his third paragraph explaining why playing video games is his favorite hobby.

Our January class store had many fun prizes ranging from Valentine crafts, shamrock glasses, school supplies, and surprise QR codes. Bryan chose a QR code, scanned it on one of our class minis and scored a seat swap for the day. Other prizes included a day in the teacher's chair and pajama day!

When discussing the special verb to be--am, is, are, was, and were. We recorded our knowledge using a two-column note organizer.