Weekly Update

Reading Workshop:
We have started our Informational Unit.  Students have been reading nonfiction texts during workshop.  Students learned readers preview, predict, and tap prior knowledge before reading nonfiction.  Reading partners practiced this strategy with a new nonfiction text selected by the teacher.  Students also learned readers pause and paraphrase information by putting it in their own words.  Partners once again practiced this strategy by rereading their nonfiction text from Day 1 and orally paraphrasing information to one another.  At the end of the week, readers learned to locate main idea sentences within paragraphs and support the main ideas with key details from the text.  Partners worked together to identify the main idea of one chapter from their nonfiction book and key details which supported their main idea.  There are a couple examples of this reading task below.

Writing Workshop:
We have begun our Informational Unit in writing as well.  Students have brainstormed topics in which they feel they are an expert on.  Once a topic is chosen, students have written subtopics to support their topic.  Then they have tried to write about each subtopic.  Students quickly realized they needed to truly be an expert on a topic to be able to write enough about it.

Math:
We continued to practice three digit addition and subtraction.  We also reviewed solving word problems using estimation and multi-step word problems.

Science:
They've finally arrived...and I didn't get any pictures!  Students were very excited about the arrival of our crayfish.  They were a little disappointed to hear they weren't each getting their own personal crayfish.  So far we have only discussed how to pick up the crayfish.  We had several brave students try this out right away.  Students also wrote about their initial observations of the crayfish.

We wrapped up the plant portion of our Structures of Life Unit.  Students sorted their bean sprouts to locate a swollen bean, a bean with its seed coat off, a bean with a root, and a bean with steam and leaves.  Finally, we talked about hydroponics.  We read about how plants can grow in water without soil.  We picked our best looking bean sprouts to try to grow further in our own hydroponics system.

All-Star of the Week:
Our amazing All-Star last week was Macy!  Students enjoyed hearing her share items from her sharing sack and listen to her read aloud, A Garden for Miss Mouse.  We also liked hearing mixed-up poems about Macy and many new facts about Macy we didn't know through her parent letter.  Macy enjoyed a special lunch with her mom and dad on Thursday, and she had a special guest visit our classroom at the end of the day Friday.  The class loved meeting her dog, Stardust!  Students wrote many kind words about our All-Star Macy in her compliment book to end her special week.