A Busy Week...
Last week we demonstrated our skills as readers through our presentations of reader's theater. The kids took charge of reading the scripts and creating their own characters according to punctuation, context, and interaction with other characters. They planned and directed their own performances.
They did a wonderful job, and all of the hard work you have been doing at home to support your reader was evident.
We continued looking at ways to represent data by graphing our totals of food donations each day. Using the pictures you shared with me, the kids have also continued searching for math in our world. This is an investigation we will carry throughout the year. We worked with larger numbers to break them down through picture form (base ten blocks) and by looking at the value of each digit (expanded form). Throughout the year so far, we have worked many problems together that required regrouping (carrying and borrowing), but recently the kids began trying this independently. Make sure to include your child when you are doing math such as calculating tips and discounts. There's no better teacher than authentic experiences.
As social scientists, we continued our inquiry into hunger and homelessness. The information we gathered through books, articles and speakers, helped support us in our efforts to gather donations for Passing of the Cans. Our class was shocked to find that nearly 1 in 5 children in the US faces hunger. The reality of this hit them when we divided up the class to see 4 of our classmates would face hunger according this number. Thank you for all of your donations. The class would like to continue collecting food items throughout the year. I will deliver whatever is donated this year to Harvest Hope.
This Week
We will begin new investigations this week. As readers, we will take a closer look at our thinking while we read. In math, we will launch our first real inquiry into money. Poetry will be our new focus in writing. Our study of homelessness and hunger will flow into a look at power and how it effects our world.
December 20 Weather Make-Up Day
December 21 11:30 Dismissal/ Winter Break Begins
January 7 Students return to school
Here we demonstrated how to write larger numbers in standard, expanded, and picture form using chick peas as our manipulative.
Readers' Theater:
Spiderella
Goldilocks and the Three BullFrogs
Frog and Toad
We enjoyed sharing some new books after our trip to Sandhills Library.
Passing of the Cans......
We broke our record from last year. Total: 2,312 items!
We wrapped up our week singing with Mrs. Pender's and Dr. Hass' classes.
