What a Blast!

It was wonderful to meet all of you in our classroom for Open house this week. Hopefully, I was able to give you some insights into our schedule, our curriculum, and the general daily goings on in Room 29.  As I said at Open House, if you ever have any questions about ANYTHING related to our classroom, please feel free to contact me by phone or email.  I will get back to you right away.

We were so busy this week that it seemed to just fly by! Here are some highlights of the goings on in our classroom this week...

I'm fortunate to get to teach the rocks and minerals unit of study in science; this is a big hit with all the kids. I think it you were to ask them their favorite part of school, most of them would say science. And this week, we really had a blast! Literally!

As we began to explore the three types of rocks, we first created a volcano out of vinegar, baking soda, and some red food die and watched it explode as we learned how igneous rocks are formed. We discussed the implications of volcanic activity to the environment, the weather, and to the communities that lie in the path of a volcano's destruction force. Specifically, we talked about the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D., and saw some picture of the uncovered cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum online. We explored some real igneous rocks, too: granite, scoria, pumice, basalt, obsidian.

During Reader's Workshop, we continued to talk about character traits, what motivates character, and how they change throughout stories. We read The Honest to Goodness Truth, Enemy Pie, and The Raft. Students also have been writing about main characters in their independent reading and how those characters change within the text.  I continued to collect and grade Reader's Workshop notebooks, and was impressed with how neat and well organized they were and how well students are doing using text dependent evidence to support their responses.

In Writer's Workshop, students worked with their writing partners to edit and revise their writing and create more elaborative, descriptive pieces.  We also learned what to do if we run out of gas as writers!

We are half way through our first math module and are gearing up for our mid-module assessment on Tuesday. Please have your child use their math notebook to study. The test will cover multiplication and division strategies (arrays, number bonds, count-bys) and the commutative and distributive properties.

Reminders:

We only have about 15 minutes for snack each day. Please make sure your child has a snack he/she can eat in 15 minutes (one item should suffice). Some children are bringing in too many snacks, and I fear food is being wasted.