Blizzard Blogging about Biomes, "Blowing" Through Multiplication, Braille, Text Structures, Expository Experts, and Halfway Day

It's hard to believe we've already been in school 3 weeks in 2015! We sure have been busy!

Several students who had eagerly participated in my Winter Break Reading Challenge enjoyed an after school hot cocoa party. Reading really is delicious!

Our current science unit focuses on the various biomes found around the world. Fittingly, we started with the tundra and learned about the climate, numerous animals who call the tundra home, and the low-lying cushion plants that can be found there. Next, we read about the rainforest, its four layers, and why it has been coined "Earth's largest pharmacy."

We would be remiss if we let January come and go without a study of a very influential man in America's history. Biographies, passages, paired texts, and timelines confirmed existing knowledge about Martin Luther King and the legacy of this famous civil rights leader. Students were captivated as they watched King's famous "I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

We have been fortunate enough to bring to life multiplication flip books perfectly aligned with common core standards. These templates were created by a talented teacher and blogger Blair Turner. 

Topic 6 has concluded with problem solving using multiplication, arrays, skip counting, and even algebra. We used organized lists to solve for all possible combinations in real life situations.

We've been blowing through our multiplication timed quizzes. We earn bubble gum to enjoy during math for every timed quiz that earns a score of 90 or above. 

Topic 6 concluded with practice multiplying 3 factors, using multiplication to solve for combinations, and Our long term math project has been assigned and an informational letter with a rubric has been sent home. Students will demonstrate their understanding of fact families by representing a colorful and creative array using stickers, illustration, print-outs, shapes, or designs. A multiplication and division fact family should accompany the array. The second part of the project requires students to create a mathematical table representing the amount of food needed to serve breakfast to their families. Individual serving sizes are included on the project letter. Projects are due March 11.

In honor of January being National Braille Month, two new word work activities debuted this week-- Braille and American Sign Language. Students have been eager to practice spelling their words using these two alternate means of communication.

As we delve deeper into informational texts, we have studied the text structure of books and articles to help us better understand the author's purpose for writing. Often writers will present facts in one of these formats--descriptive compare and contrast, cause and effect, problem and solution, or sequential.

QR Critters offer students reader response questions to use during Reader's Workshop along with their independent reading book--fiction or informational. Students scan the QR codes to read the question. Students answer questions pertaining to characters, setting, plot, resolution, author's purpose, genre, predictions, and factual information--just to name a few.

In Writer's Workshop, students have begun brainstorming, drafting, and researching topics and main ideas for their first expository piece. Topics range from presidents to sharks, basketball to soccer, and France to fish. Writers will incorporate text features in to their published pieces.

Writers have also enjoyed writing narratives inspired by photographs found in calendars like the one seen below.

We have extended our study of nouns to include abstract nouns such as freedom, patience, and knowledge and concrete nouns such as flag, basket, and book.

On Halfway Day students brainstormed and composed half of a story-- setting the scene and introducing the character and story problem. A writing partner had to complete the story resolving the story's problem.

The 100th Day is gradually approaching...

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.