I'm still not sure what day it is, however, we're going with it. We had a couple out of the ordinaries today. First, we had a safety drill this afternoon and then, we went to the MakerSpace for some creative play!
We are trying for less screen time because when given the choice, they'll choose the ipad. So, for Morning Choice, we tried some things other than what is "easy" and had a great time. Hopefully, this will continue through the week and so on. After Art, in meeting, we shared and shared about our looooonnnnggg weekend. In The Beaded Moccasins, they finally arrived at the Cuyahoga River where they plan to live. I love this chapter because I've been to Mary Campbell's Cave in Cuyahoga Falls and took pictures that I like to share with them. It brings the historical part of the historical fiction book more to reality. We read independently and then partnered up to work on understanding a poem. In Writer's Workshop, we either worked on our opinion writing or wrote poetry. In Math Workshop, we are practicing and reviewing and securing our understanding of all things fractions. My hope is that we'll be able to move on to decimals on Monday, with everyone. Our day ended with a few "Would you rather?" scenarios after MakerSpace.
Wednesday, January 17, 2018
Friday, January 12, 2018
Early Dismissal
Today was crazy! We had a little bit of math, a little bit of reading and writing and some understanding of why we have school off on Monday. We made it through safe and sound! :)
Thursday, January 11, 2018
We did it!
Together, we made it completely through the day with minimal redirection so we have officially earned our full potato head celebration! :) We'll be deciding how to celebrate tomorrow and then the celebration will be next week sometime.
Today was Mrs. Hider's first day! She is completing her student teaching for Grand Canyon University and will be with us for the next 4 months. After some introductions, we had a school community meeting reminding us about building skill and choosing to keep ourselves above the line. Some of our kiddos were recognized for their efforts in December and received certificates and got to stand up in the meeting. After mindset, in The Beaded Moccasins, they arrived at their village and Mary met her "mother," Hepte and discovered that the "old one," that had captured her is their leader and she is to be his granddaughter. Their rest didn't last long and now they are headed for the Ohio Territory to set up permanent residence. We read independently and then practiced our fluency using poetry for two voices before going over the poem we worked with yesterday. In Writer's Workshop, we continued writing our opinion pieces inspired by MLK day. I was hoping we could get outside today but it was raining terribly. In Math Workshop, we worked on what multiplication with fractions and whole numbers means and looks like. Our day ended with discovering/exploring toys and how they work with energy transformations in the Ohio Energy Project.
Today was Mrs. Hider's first day! She is completing her student teaching for Grand Canyon University and will be with us for the next 4 months. After some introductions, we had a school community meeting reminding us about building skill and choosing to keep ourselves above the line. Some of our kiddos were recognized for their efforts in December and received certificates and got to stand up in the meeting. After mindset, in The Beaded Moccasins, they arrived at their village and Mary met her "mother," Hepte and discovered that the "old one," that had captured her is their leader and she is to be his granddaughter. Their rest didn't last long and now they are headed for the Ohio Territory to set up permanent residence. We read independently and then practiced our fluency using poetry for two voices before going over the poem we worked with yesterday. In Writer's Workshop, we continued writing our opinion pieces inspired by MLK day. I was hoping we could get outside today but it was raining terribly. In Math Workshop, we worked on what multiplication with fractions and whole numbers means and looks like. Our day ended with discovering/exploring toys and how they work with energy transformations in the Ohio Energy Project.
1/10/17
Sorry~forgot to post last night. I'm still really tired and achy by the end of the day so I went home and went to bed.
I was out for professional development yesterday morning but Mrs. Bowers was our substitute and they worked with poetry and opinion writing. In Math Workshop, we are continuing our understanding of multiplying whole numbers with fractions. They are making a great transition from adding and composing fractions (1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 = 3/4) into multiplication (3 x 1/4 = 3/4). In Social Studies, we worked on our Infographics for the Native American group we picked to represent.
I was out for professional development yesterday morning but Mrs. Bowers was our substitute and they worked with poetry and opinion writing. In Math Workshop, we are continuing our understanding of multiplying whole numbers with fractions. They are making a great transition from adding and composing fractions (1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 = 3/4) into multiplication (3 x 1/4 = 3/4). In Social Studies, we worked on our Infographics for the Native American group we picked to represent.
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
Ugh!
Man, today was rough! I don't know if we need to get outside for recess or what but I think I stopped every five minutes to get them from talking! Even when I was up in the front of the room teaching! Our goal today was to be more purposeful with everything we were doing. For example, after our meeting, we said the Pledge and then were to go get our ipads and come back for read aloud. A small handful did this, however, the majority of the class, did not do this with purpose-they talked with their friends and went to their bags, etc. We'll try again tomorrow.
We began our day completing a Learning Styles survey for our morning question, "Tell me Tuesday." What are your child's preferences? In meeting, we shared for 30 minutes! what we did yesterday. In The Beaded Moccasins, Mary and Mrs. Stewart continued west over the Appalachian Mountains with their captors. She was told that she was going to replace their leader's granddaughter who had passed away. We read independently and in Reader's Workshop, discussed poetry. We even had a few minutes to write some poetry before continuing our work with our opinion writing. In Math Workshop, we worked with multiplying fractions with whole numbers. We showed what this looks like using equations, area models and number lines. We ended our day completing our chart describing the who, what, when and where of Native Americans in Ohio.
We began our day completing a Learning Styles survey for our morning question, "Tell me Tuesday." What are your child's preferences? In meeting, we shared for 30 minutes! what we did yesterday. In The Beaded Moccasins, Mary and Mrs. Stewart continued west over the Appalachian Mountains with their captors. She was told that she was going to replace their leader's granddaughter who had passed away. We read independently and in Reader's Workshop, discussed poetry. We even had a few minutes to write some poetry before continuing our work with our opinion writing. In Math Workshop, we worked with multiplying fractions with whole numbers. We showed what this looks like using equations, area models and number lines. We ended our day completing our chart describing the who, what, when and where of Native Americans in Ohio.
Thursday, January 4, 2018
Back to the grind...
We are getting back into the grind of school. I'm having to pull some of them along with us, but we're all moving on! :) It was a crazy Thursday schedule but that gave us some time to complete our spelling screeners before Mindset. We are going to try something different, as a grade level, for spelling so the screeners help us to split the kiddos into groups based on their spelling needs. We are still concentrating on the patterns of words so they won't necessarily have "lists" and "tests." In our morning meeting, we went over the class surveys and they agree there should be less talking in the class so today, we had semi-assigned seats to begin the day. This helped a bit but we still need to use more self-discipline and control for when to talk and how loud our voices should be. In The Beaded Moccasins, it was Mary's birthday! We are still getting to know Mary and the setting so we've stopped a lot to better understand the time period. Yesterday, we worked with carding wool and spinning thread and today we learned about churning butter. We are also focusing on the similes the author uses to help us understand. After some time reading independently, we listened to the poem in StoryWorks, "Ode To My Shoes," and answered some critical thinking questions about the poem. In Writer's Workshop, we looked at our opinion writing we did before break and compared it to the 4th grade checklist to make sure we are making the transition to 4th grade opinion writing. After lunch and indoor recess and quiet time, we completed a one-pager about fractions. Pretty much, they were given a blank piece of paper and they needed to fill it up, artistically, with everything they know about fractions. Since we are all at different points in our learning, I wasn't sure where they all ended up before break. This will help me to better grasp where they are and where to go from here. Although it was a little overwhelming at first, they did ok. I think we'll need time tomorrow to finish but your kiddo might be working on this tonight. We ended our day reading about the Native Americans of the 1700's.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Happy New Year!
I made it through my first day back! I'm pretty swollen, sore and tight but I did it! We had a good day~very chatty, but the first day back is always chatty. We started the day with "Snaps" of our winter break and shared them during our meeting. We shared a lot during our meeting, actually! I really enjoyed chatting and catching up. Next, we completed a 2017 Year In Review. In order to set goals and improve, we need to first know where we are. This review helped get our minds right on the basics of our 2017. We started a new book for Read Aloud, The Beaded Moccasins by Lynda Durrant. This is a historical fiction book about Mary Campbell who was taken captive by Native Americans in the 1700's. We are still being introduced to the characters, setting and time period so we haven't even gotten to her capture yet. In Reader's Workshop, we met up with our literature groups to make sure we were all caught up with our reading-which most of us were not... After lunch and indoor recess, obviously, in Math Workshop, we used what we knew of fractions to understand the markings on a ruler and then measured ourselves to the nearest quarter inch. We then made a line plot of how tall we all area and drew conclusions about our data. Next, we read a quote:
and discussed that we should measure our growth (academic, sports, etc.) on our past, not each other-just like we measure our height. We even hung up a paper and marked our heights that we can look at as a visual for remembering this. It's hard to not compare ourselves to each other, especially once you get old enough to understand, but we are going to try! We concluded our day reviewing our understanding of the mound builders.
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