2nd/3rd : Week of Feb 5th

Math –

Ms. Andrea’s math group measured big things by “marking the spot” that our ruler ends with a finger and lining it up again without leaving any space in between. We also had fun making lots of conversions, such as feet into yards. We had Word Problem Wednesday and solved measurement problems using open number lines in partners and presented our results. So proud of the level of communication and thought process developing in this crew. At the end of the week we discussed capacity and area. We studied polygons and determined their area, then made some of our own. And we did the last measurements for this unit!

Ms. Kelly’s math group doesn’t need Ms. Kelly much anymore. These guys can run our warmup themselves! Our word problem of the day is proving to pay off. This group is rocking the multi step/multi operation problems! This week we focused on multiplication and division with a missing variable, which was replaced with a letter! 😮 Total” big kid” math! We learned we could solve by using the numbers we know and turning it into either a multiplication or division equation to find the missing variable. Easy peasy!

Literacy –

In reading -Book clubs and word work is our jam! This week some kiddos were building contractions, others were building sentences using suffix -ly words, and still others were building their knowledge of the “bossy r” spelling patterns. (Yeah, we are very busy around here!) We also focused on looking for evidence in texts- an important skill that can feel quite tedious! Going back through a text to find an answer is key to great reading comprehension, and it needs to be explicitly taught! In Book Club Land, one group is getting ready to embark on a journey through a new book! All other clubs are close on the trail, devouring their novels and discussing as we go.

In writing we have discovered that the fact finding mission never truly ends, as we’re always coming up with questions to help us better understand our inventor. The rest of the process does march on, however. This week we finished categorizing our facts into parts for our Table of Contents and wrote our introductions! To grab the attention of the reader, we used a cool question, sound effect, or an interesting fact! We also shared our introductions with one another. This helped us gain some fresh ideas from others before going back through our own and perfecting it before we move on to conclusions next week!

Theme –

This week we painted our toppers for our cardboard automata- base coat first, and then added details when dry. Next step- making the foam gears to allow our little art pieces to move up and down or twirl around! By the end of the week our cardboard automata are really coming along! While the teachers worked with a small group of students assembling gears and creating magic, others made magnificent marble runs and legendary Lego creations! A fun way to end the week!