A Character Book Parade, Thankful Letters, Factors, Arrays and the Native Wampanoags

Our Character Book Parade last month brought many famous storybook characters to Room 16. From Fancy Nancy to Amber Brown and Harry Potter-- it was great to see the students' creativity shine!

                 

                        

                  

          

               

                

          

               

           

In writing, students are working on friendly thankful letters. From chairs, to band-aids, and sandwiches, we have many simple pleasures to be thankful for. Students were eager to share and showcase their writing using an app called AudioBoom. Visit our Twitter page to listen in!

                

          

Topic 4 has launched our learning of multiplication. Factors, products, and arrays have been our focus. We even transformed into storytellers in math as we created story problems that can be solved using multiplication.

                         

 

 

The students have been enjoying their recent study of the Wampanoags. Illustrations, photographs, captions, and other text features have provided additional information beyond the text. From flipbooks to top down webs, we've been showing our new knowledge about the daily lives of the first people to Massachusetts. Did you know they used an animal's bladder as a bag to carry things?

                  

                 

Informational text is our newest unit--Mrs. Mack's favorite!

Expanding Algorithms, Character, Setting, and a Close Read of Christopher Columbus

This week we concluded our work in Topic 2 though the foundations of place value from this topic will lay the groundwork for much of our future studies. Problem solving and checking that our answer is reasonable are key concepts. Math Center games like Clip and Cover helped us practice our rounding and explain our strategies using "Math Talk."

 

 
Today we explored adding using an expanded algorithm with three-digit addends.

 

 

In writing, we are combining our "stretched out" sentences into an organized paragraph describing a few of our favorite fall activities. We brainstormed sensory words that relate to fall that will add richness to our writing.

We continue to build our oral ready fluency with a Poem of the Week that we often AudioBoo and tweet.

In reading, our unit on fictional texts has focused on character, setting, and plot. Daily reading passages have provided rich opportunity to support our thinking with text, make visualizations, and identify genre. 

Reading contracts debuted this week. During Reader's Workshop, students may partner read text as one of many options that extend their learning from their Book Club and independent reading texts. 

The mentor text Owl Moon was a fine example of vivid language used to describe setting. Without seeing the illustrations, students sketched and described what they saw, heard, and felt using Jane Yolen's text.

 

 

 

In the spirit of Columbus Day, we began a "close read" of an informational text about Christopher Columbus's voyage and "discoveries." Our first read was focused on identifying unfamiliar vocabulary. Next, we will read for comprehension, locating evidence of our thinking.

Next we will explore the world of folktales, fables, and tall tales. In writing, we will choose a topic for our first published narrative and work on correcting run-on sentences.