August 29th Update

Wow, what a busy first two weeks of school we've had in room 14!  We have spent a lot of time getting to know each other, establishing and practicing routines, and learning to work collaboratively. 

Math
We have jumped right into the first unit (Factors, Multiples, and Arrays) and students have been busy exploring multiplication through arrays. Next week we will continue to make sure that students have mastered their multiplication combination through 12X12. 

Language Arts
I have begun to assess students writing skills this year by having them write me a story about a favorite memory from the summer, a summary of a National Geographic Explorer article, as well as a poem about themselves.  Having them do this will help inform my instruction so I know what areas I need to focus on as we move forward.  I really enjoyed reading about all the fun things they did with their families during the summer!
In reading we have started a class novel study of The Cricket in Times Square. We will be doing most of the reading of this book in class and students will be asked to write responses to the story in their Reading Response Notebooks. 

Science
We have jumped right into our first unit of science as well, Environments.  This week students were put into collaborative groups and each group has started a terrarium where they have planted seeds.  Every 2-3 days they observe their terrariums and record their observations in their science notebooks.

Social Studies
So far we have read and completed activities for the first lesson of unit 1 in our social studies books, The Land of California. This week students worked on finding the absolute location of a place by using the lines of latitude and longitude. Next week they will learn more about how the earth is divided into hemispheres.

Music/PE
Students have already had several sessions of both music and PE with their wonderful teachers.  I sat in on the last 5 minutes of music today and heard some wonderful singing and saw some excellent rhythmic dancing going on.  Please check in with your child to find out more about what they have been doing in PE since I fogot to ask (sorry!).