Monday, September 16th, 2013

IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO DRIVE AND ACCOMPANY US ON OUR HEADMASTER HIKE FRIDAY, PLEASE CONTACT ME ASAP.

This morning we learned a line trick with multiplication:Crisscrossing, or intersecting lines forming points where they intersect.  3 lines intersecting 2 lines=6 points, etc.

We wrote in journals, learned that adverbs answer the questions: where, when, how; practiced cursive E and did spelling tests. 

My reading class was introduced to book clubs.  Students met to discuss reading speeds.  They have 3 weeks to complete the books.  Each student has a role to fill.  Roles will change each week.  PLEASE BE SURE YOUR CHILD IS READING HIS/HER BOOK CLUB BOOK.  They should not read ahead, rather they should prepare to present their assignment to the group.  For example, if your child is the Word Whiz, he or she will find five difficult words, look them up in the dictionary, prepare a worksheet for his or her group, and teach the group those five words.  If the role is that of Summarizer, he or she will write in 10 sentences or less, the gist of the story to that point, including main characters, problem, setting, etc.  Other roles are that of Visualizer (draws a detailed picture based on one of the scenes in the book), Connector (writes and shares Text-to-text, Text-to-Self, or Text-to-World examples based on specific pages in the book).  There is also a Game Master, whose job it is to create a simple game for that part of the book that was assigned.  A simple roll the dice or memory game is sufficient.  NEXT MONDAY THE FIRST THIRD OF THE BOOK IS DUE, ALONG WITH THE ASSIGNMENTS.  Students will be presenting to their groups every Monday.  At the end of the book, students will have one week to work on a big presentation for the class.

Math continues to be factors.  "It is a fact that factors start with ONE", is what I say often in teaching factors to the students.  We reiterated today that a Prime Number is a number that has only two factors.  The number "1" is NOT a Prime Number, because it has only one factor.  HOMEWORK IS JUST TWO PAGES OF EXERCISE 8.  Please don't do the third page.  We will be learning that tomorrow.

After Drama and Music, we wrote down everything we know about dinosaurs and Dinosaur National Monument.  We wrote down questions we have about both.  We then used iPads to research everything we could about topics surrounding dinosaurs and DNM.  Tomorrow students will choose an area of interest to become experts on over the next ten days.

P.E. and Science summed up the day.

Please be aware there is a new dismissal policy.  Students will go to my room at 3:10, where they will gather their items, write down homework, clean up, and then go to the gym to be picked up by 3:30 p.m.