Hands Off! Rocket Man, A Walk in the PARCC, the Balloon Countdown, an Egg Hunt, and a Frozen-themed Fraction song

Our learning sure has been "hands on" lately.

It's hard to decide where to start!

We conducted an experiment to witness the effects of dirty vs clean hands. And boy, did we see changes--moldy changes!

Last Friday we were fortunate enough to meet Mr. Heission, also known as Rocket Man, and learn a great deal about the space race, rockets, and equipment astronauts use in space.

Our frozen fact families were perfect fits amid a snowy, snowy winter.

Greek and Latin roots such as aqua, mort, struct, mal, phone comprised our forest of root trees. These roots become particularly valuable when determining the meaning of unfamiliar words. For example, knowing that mal means poor or bad, helps us determine the meaning of malnutrition.

Our balloon countdown to PARCC led us on a synonym egg hunt around Room 16...

 

 

We have reviewed some test-taking strategies for reading passages and solving word problems. When beginning a new passage it is important to activate our schema and recall background knowledge on the topic. Previewing the questions first gives us a purpose for our reading. Reading questions and bolded words carefully allows us to focus on what is being asked and highlights multiple parts to a question. Finally, slashing the trash eliminates wrong answers and helps narrow our options when responding to multiple choice questions.

Mrs. Killinger was kind enough to let us borrow Dr. Seuss's Hooray for Diffendoofer Day-- a motivational read the day before our first day of PARCC testing.

In math we have kicked off our exploration of fractions. We learned the difference between the numerator and denominator. This fraction video has a Frozen twist I'm sure you'll enjoy!

Information Text, the 100th Day, Pen Pal Letters, a Valentine Exchange, Division, and Google Docs

February may have been snowy and short, but we sure stayed busy!

We continue to dive in to informational texts, use text evidence to support our thinking, and become familiar with the format of passages and questions on the upcoming PARCC test. We have been getting experience with constructed response using excerpts and references in the text.

Our 100th Day was jam-packed. Many kids surely dressed the part! We wrote about life as a 100 year old person, brainstormed enjoyed a 100 calorie snack, and enjoyed puzzles using a hundreds chart.

  

We've also continued collecting and analyzing data through our Throwback Thursday and Flashback Friday spotlights. After collecting and totaling students' guesses, we plot the data on a bar graph after determining an appropriate scale. Finally, we draw conclusions and analyze our findings.

Students were eager to respond to their Floridian pen pals. Along with individual letters, students received maps and facts about the Sunshine State. Writers drafted two column notes as they organized their reply. Some shared about how we celebrated the 100th Day, our Valentine celebration, and the heavy snow we had received. 

 

We were fortunate enough to take part in a nationwide Valentine Exchange with 21 other elementary classrooms from Hawaii to Arizona, Oklahoma, Florida, Pennsylvania, and New York to name a few.

  
Topic 7 has introduced us to division! We are finding that multiplication and division are opposite operations and our multiplication facts can help us as we solve division problems.

As we delve deeper into expository writing, we have begun to frame our piece using the expository pillar. Three body paragraphs will focus on three main ideas pertaining to the writer's topic. Some topics include hockey, gymnastics, sharks, Abraham Lincoln, artists' tools, and rocks and minerals. We have also worked together to reconstruct 4 expository pieces using the introduction, main idea headers, and concluding paragraphs as guides on the topics of Abraham Lincoln, the blue whale, Halloween, and types of dogs.

 

Students have become avid users of their Google Docs accounts as they compose friendly letters, practice spelling words, and publish final drafts. 

And don't forget, students' long term math project is due Wednesday, March 11. I am looking forward to students sharing their math breakfast table, colorful and creative array, and fact family.

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...