These past 2 weeks have been full of learning and discovering!
We celebrated E.G.G.I. Week, or Education Go Get It Week. The focus was on beginning with the end in mind and thinking about goals we can already set so one day we too can be college-bound just like our teachers! We got to even enjoy a few presentations to learn more about different careers and what each of the speakers did, and still does, to grow, learn, and be successful.
First, we learned all about being a registered nurse, including an emergency room nurse, which sounded really exciting! We learned about the different tools that nurses use and each of their purposes. We even were able to explore a few of these tools as they were passed around.
There were a few demonstrations for us to see how a nurse would care for someone with an injury. One of our very own Tiger Team members volunteered and had his finger wrapped. It was very neat to see the tool that they used to accomplish this!
We also got to see our very own Mrs. Mathews present. She told us all about being an event planner as well as some information about herself. Everyone was very interested to know she is from New York! We sure had lots of questions for Mrs. Mathews and she was so awesome to answer them all.
Finally, we saw a Marshall arts instructor speak. He told us the importance of setting goals and "taking the first step." He explained how if we quit, we will accomplish a whole lot of nothing in our lives. He showed us some karate stances, bows, and moves. He explained how important it is to concentrate, focus, and follow directions in school every day. We even had a member of our Tiger Team demonstrate what happens if we are not being a good listener and how we miss out on knowledge.
This goes along with our "EFFORT" chart and check we have been learning about and doing each day. We discussed how effort is not about how much we "get done," how many we "get right," or even how fast we are. Rather, effort is about how hard we TRY. We looked at some pictures of some characters and discussed how much effort each was giving on a scale of 1 to 4. Now, when we have independent activities, such as in Reading Round-up, we can do an effort check and see how hard we are trying with our tasks and therefore how much we are learning.
This week, we added "reading to someone" to our list of Reading Round-up activities. We discussed what this should look like and we get to practice this activity each day. We even brainstormed what kinds of questions we should be asking our buddies to discuss our books!
We also learned about making inferences and what this word means. Mrs. Maggart showed us some things inside of her bag and we had to tell her what those items were telling us about her. We made some great inferences and we learned a lot about Mrs. Maggart too! Next week, we will make inferences using texts.
In Writer's Workshop, we have been learning about the first 2 steps of the writing process: our picture plan and our draft (or words). We learned what we should do when we think we are done with a piece by self-checking our work using our "I'm Done" rubric. We see what number our piece looks like and we add what is necessary to reach the level 4 and start a new piece.
We are also working with Mrs. Maggart in writing conferences to set writing goals.
We learned about two new genres that we can write: lists and letters and the purpose of each. We know that writers write for many purposes and we identified our purpose before beginning a new piece.
In math, we have been working on addition and various strategies we can use for computational fluency. We have been working a lot with our ten-frame tool and making numbers without having to count each counter one-by-one. To help us with this skill, we practiced recognizing dot patterns on cards and dice too. Then, we used these strategies to help us find patterns in addition sentences, like in our combination of tens, as well as making addition sentences with manipulatives like dominoes.
Look at all of the math vocabulary words we are learning, reading, and using each day.
We are also using addition in our daily problem solving, or Question of the Day. We have a strategy wall that we refer to to make sure we are meeting all 4 requirements for our daily word problem. We also have a copy in our math offices to refer to. Here are some awesome mathematicians who met all of the expectations and made it on the strategy wall for others to use their strategies to help solve their own problems.
In Science, we have been studying our science safety rules and procedures as well as our science tools.
It's a good thing we explored and investigated because one day we received a very special package from the police department. An Officer Buckles asked us to help him solve a case.
We used our scales and weights to weigh each of the suspects' balls that they left at the crime scene to determine which was the heaviest and hence, who robbed the bank!
We also have been learning about properties and how everything that is matter (which is anything that takes up space) has different properties. We explored some items and described each of their properties. Then, we compared the items. This is when we discovered that we could actually change the properties of matter! We will be ready next week to try and change the 3 states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases.
What a great week!
Love,
