Thursday Thrills!

What a fun day! First, Justin read to the class.

We also had a mystery reader: my daughter Jennifer who is home from college on Spring Break. She is studying to be a teacher and she read The Giving Tree in our classroom and in Mrs. Perrone's classroom. So proud of her!

And we had Nature Dan from the Bartlett Nature Center who taught us about weather. Here a few pictures:

And, of course, we read. We read Just a Dream by Chris Van Allsburg. We will discuss the book more tomorrow, but we are looking for character traits as well as why and how the character changed in the book. We also learned more about equivalent fractions.

Konrad read another Cynthia Rylant book to the class. Thanks, Konrad! After the morning specials, we worked on phonics and then learned more about maps. During math, we learned more about equivalent fractions. More on equivalent fractions tomorrow! Tomorrow we have have an "indoor" field trip: Nature Dan will visit the 2nd grade classrooms to talk about Wacky Weather. I KNOW it will be GREAT!

Thanks, Arushi, for reading with such fluency. We LOVED the book! Friday we learned more about MAPS. We looked at the United States Map and identified capitals. We also learned more about clouds and how they affect the weather. We also began our whole class persuasive investigation about why the United States is a great place to visit. Students will learn research skills to apply to their own persuasive topics of their choice. In reading, we read a short story by Cynthia Rylant: A Bad Road for Cats. We are looking at character traits and how and why characters change in the stories. I also sent home homework that is due March 23. I don't want to send home work to do over break. I want everyone READING!!!!! Reading is the best way to improve in every academic area...so READ!!!!

Classroom Update

Sorry for the delay...lots going on...but here's ALL the news!

Make a digital ecard

Spring Ahead!

My camera battery died on Friday, so I will post pictures tomorrow. I have one more picture to take before I post the students who read last week. Sorry! We finished up our inferring unit and will be spending the next week or so looking at characters and their traits. We will also be looking at how characters change in the story and what the trigger was to cause the change. We are moving into expository writing using persuasion. We are debating topics to do research on and then will learn how to take the research and write a persuasive piece. We are beginning our unit on fractions in math beginning Monday. Enjoy the great weather!

Catching Up!

Last weeks readers as well as Monday and Tuesday's

We've been working on measurement and then using the date to determine the middle value. Tomorrow we will work on frequency as well as mode. Here we are measuring our arm spans and how far we can jump (collecting measurement data)

Our new hot read as well as a buddy, Pete the Cat:

We are savoring the moments as we anticipate reading the new Hot Read. A new Pete the Cat is coming out soon and I'll be sure to purchase it as well! Just a note that report cards will come home on Friday March 16.

Week of Feb. 27-March 2

Sorry this is such a late post, but I've been sick this week and I focused on the students instead. And, because of this, I don't have pictures of all the kids as child of the day, so I'll post those this week.

We continue to use Chris Van Allsburgs books to work on the reading strategy of inferring. In this picture, Sophie shared with the class where she found a clue about The Stranger (the book we read) that we had missed. GREAT JOB, Sophie! We also spent time writing our persuasive letters and how to include powerful reasons. We also wrote letters to a 5th/6th grade class who are taking ISAT tests this week. We wanted to encourage them to do well. Friday was Read Across America day in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday. Here are a few pictures of how we honored the day: