Weekly Update

We had a busy first full week in Room 13! Students are becoming more familiar with our classroom routines and are immersed in exciting learning experiences in all subject areas.

Reading Workshop
This week students learned how the classroom library is organized and how to return books when they are finished reading them. Each book has a label that helps students determine the section of the library and the correct basket in which it belongs. Readers continued to record each book they read and were able to "shop" for new books when they finished the books in their book box. They learned a strategy for choosing "just right" books called IPICK and used it to help them make good choices. Students also reviewed the characteristics of 6 fiction genres including realistic fiction (RF), fantasy (F) traditional literature (TL), mystery (M), science fiction (SF), and historical fiction (HF).

Writing Workshop
Students started the week by decorating their writer's notebooks, and they had a blast! They used personal photos, pictures from magazines, stickers, scrapbook paper, and drawings to cover their notebooks with things that we hope will inspire the writing they do this year. We then began our first unit of study, Personal Narrative. Students thought of special people and special places in their lives and then brainstormed "small moment" stories they wanted to write as the first entries in their notebooks. 

Read Alouds
We are continuing to read stories that teach our students themes, or lessons that we want them to learn and appreciate. This week's stories included I Hate English (Acceptance), Ordinary Mary's Extra Ordinary Deed (Kindness), and The Empty Pot (Honesty).


Math Workshop
Math workshop is now in full swing! We continued on with our first unit, Multiplication & Division 0-5, 9, & 10. This week students used multiplication and drawings to represent equal groups and arrays. They also learned that division is just multiplication with an unknown factor. Students especially enjoyed the game rotation in math workshop this week as they played math card games with partners and even learned a multiplication game on the iPads.

Social Studies
We began our first social studies unit this week called "Where in the World is Troy, Michigan?" In this geography unit, students are learning about the location of Troy in relation to its greater surroundings. Essentially, we will start in outer space and zoom in to find the city of Troy. Along the way, students will learn about the 7 continents in the world, the 3 countries on the continent of North America, the 50 states in the U.S.A., the 5 regions of our country, our state, our county, and finally the wonderful city of Troy.

In Other News....

Students are busy selling entertainment books to friends and family at home.  Students who have already turned in money for at least one book earned a fake mustache!