This morning, after Discovery Groups, we finished up the Caught Ya and reviewed Wordly Wise words.  It was a fun game Mrs. Haneke led.  The children had a type of bingo card filled with Wordly Wise clues/questions.  Each student had to walk around the room, find a friend to ask a question from the bingo card, and have the friend answer the clue for you.  

Mrs. Haneke also reviewed Verbs with the students. You can do the same by playing Verb Viper or by watching a fun video about verbs...it's a catchy song!

 

After we visited with Mr. Shane, we completed a math lesson.We reviewed the meaning of the word "polygon"...see below:

You can even click the picture above to explore polygons by drawing them...or even taking a polygon quiz.

Afterward, try the polygon sorting activity below.

So, do you think you can name a few polygons?  Try this quiz.

Pages 138 and 139 were completed in the math journal.  You may need to use your Student Reference Book for help.

This afternoon we will have rotation.  Seatwork will include:

*Complete a second set of questions from the Gutman book you've read.

*Turn in the first set of questions from the Gutman book.

*Finish your glog

*Continue writing/editing your story (either the animal with super powers or the accident that happens at home- tub-boo-boo)

Since many students are not responding to their Gutman questions in complete sentences OR are not including enough detail in their answers, I presented a lesson on what kind of response I would really like to see:

In small groups, we read from our Explorer Booklet and took notes.  I will send home your booklet and mark the pages you should read.  You can put the appropriate notes on your web when you return to school.  I'll share with you what we write.

I'm sending home a copy of some projects you are close to finishing, too.  Work on what you can, but please make sure you get lots of rest.  We miss you!
:)Mrs. Neal and Mrs. Haneke

You may not remember that another site you can use to practice Wordly Wise words is Kubbu.  Click the crossword puzzle below to try one out for lesson 8.

Your username will be your teacher's name:  nealkel

Your password will be your Reading Counts password.

Have fun! :)

This morning (as part of the morning work), the students completed page 135 in their math journals as well as the traditional daily Caught Ya entry and spelling review (ABC order).  

MATH:  The math lesson today focused on quadrilaterals.   (four sided polygons)

If you click the picture, you will be taken to a lesson on quadrilaterals.  Click the "Step by Step" button to complete the lesson on your own.  The hardest quadrilateral to understand is the trapezoid, so pay particular attention to her explanation of how a trapezoid is designed.

You can also click the interactive site below for a description of various quadrilaterals.

Once you have the hang of what quadrilaterals are, you can try the sorting activity found here.  (Click the picture.)

Page 136 in the math journal was completed together in class, too.

SOCIAL STUDIES:  This afternoon, instead of reading from our Dan Gutman books (because we're done) we started studying explorers.  We will catch you up on this when you return.  You are in a group studying Pedro Menendez de Aviles who was responsible for developing the city of St. Augustine.  Your team read a page or two about him and learned a new way to take notes. 

READING:  Since we are now officially done with the books, you will have one more set of reading questions to answer.  I will send these home for you.

LANGUAGE:  We completed two activities today.  Mrs. Haneke talked about how important it is to choose exciting verbs in your story writing.  She provided a worksheet with an excerpt from Charlotte's Web with the verbs missing.  It is your job to add in verbs (actions) that make the story easier to understand...and more colorful.

We also completed a "Caught Ya" test, which you can make up when you return tomorrow.

Also, if you've not completed your glog or story, you would have had time today to work on the computer to finish those up.  

We hope you feel better soon and that you have a good book to read.  

Take care!

Choose "Adjective  Game" once you get to the site below:

This morning, we reviewed our spelling words by completing a complicated story puzzle called "They're, Their, and There".  We will send the story home to you.  Try to fill in the blanks from the story with the appropriate they're, their, or there.

We also completed math boxes on page 129 before the math lesson on lines.  Click each of the pictures below to learn about lines.

This afternoon, we will have rotation.  Students were assigned a job to do while reading in their Dan Gutman books.  The pages to read are:

Million Dollar Kick:  pages 105-131

Babe and Me: pages 105-129

Get Rich Quick Club: pages 85-106

I will be sure to send home your literature circle job for the selection.

During Seatwork, students completed another Grandparents' Day project.  You can work on that when you return to school.

When students worked with me, we wrote thank you letters to the author who visited us in the library yesterday, Robin Gonzalez.

We also spent time working on a story of your choice.  You could be finishing:

*The story about animals that have special powers after midnight...

OR

*The story about a household accident that goes horribly wrong (like Tub-boo-boo).

We will continue to write these (and edit) until they are polished and ready for scoring on the Ideas and Organization rubrics.

At the end of the day, we will visit Mrs. Driscoll in the lab.  She has something new for us to learn today since our videos are finally all complete!  Yahoo!  We'll let you know tomorrow what it was she had in store for us.

We hope you are feeling better!  Come back soon!

Mrs. Neal and Mrs. Haneke

Interested in reviewing a book before taking a Reading Counts test? You might find a practice test at Book Adventure.  You would need an account before testing, so please ask Mom or Dad for permission before registering.  The only information you need to submit is your first name, a username (I recommend using your Reading Counts username) and a password.  No other personal information is required.

Today was a fun-filled, busy day.  :)  I thought you might like a little support with our math lesson.  These animations will help.  Today, Mrs. Haneke taught the class the difference between rays, line segments, and lines.

Click each picture below to learn about them (and then press the play button in the bottom right hand corner of the screen):

We studied our new words from Lesson 8 in Wordly Wise today...and one of the words was

To demonstrate the meaning of the word (plus its opposite, ascend) we watched this fun video from Volkswagen.

You can see a bit more of their innovative experiments at The Fun Theory website.

Today was a busy and fun day!  This morning (after completing our Caught Ya and math boxes on page 120) we completed a science experiment.  You can find the details of what we did by reading below.  We wondered if a plant was strong enough to break through rock.  So we placed a seed into plaster (our best "fake" rock) and will let it try to grow over the next seven days.  Here's what we did:

After placing the pinto beans into the plaster, we completed only the "Prediction" portion of our experiment form.  What do you think will happen to the beans after they sit in the plaster for a week?  Anything?

After Mr. Shane met with the class, we talked about decimals.   We reviewed how to read decimals first and counted by tenths and hundredths.  Then we looked at a map of precipitation levels for various cities in America.  (See the power point below.)  We used the rain gauge paper (it looks like a ruler) to plot the rain levels of four cities:  Jacksonville, Asheville, Cleveland, and San Francisco.  You may need Mom's help to do this. The map of rain levels can be found on page 121 of your Student Reference Book.

After we had practice plotting those rain levels, we completed page 121 in the math journal  (question 6 is TOUGH).  We will continue to review decimals when you come back, because we recently introduced the value of thousandTHS.

Oh...and don't forget those multiplication facts! :)

During rotation today, we shared our perspective on the section of the book we read from our Dan Gutman books.  Please be sure to finish up the reading you missed and complete the literature circle form.

Seatwork included:

Complete your paragraph about the Timucua (tools)

Continue to work on your Timucua artwork

If ready...start your glog design.

Before we knew it, it was time to go to drama.

We hope you are feeling better and that you can come to school tomorrow.  If you can't, be sure to check the blog for details about our day.

:)Mrs. Neal

This morning, we completed an entry for the Caught Ya and added these words to our Spelling Dictionaries:

I also introduced the new Wordly Wise words for Lesson 7.  You can take a peek at them here.

During math, we talked about decimals.  It was easy to read money amounts like $6.31 and $0.08, but it was a bit harder to explain what a tenth and a hundredth are.  It was easier to compare them to coins.

1 dime = one-tenth of a dollar = 0.1

1 penny = one-hundredth of a dollar = 0.01

We also used longs and cubes to demonstrate. Maybe these pictures will help:

We completed p 114 and 115 in the math journal to help us understand decimals, too.  Your parents definitely know about decimals and will be able to help you get a basic understanding.

During rotation today, we started reading new books by Dan Gutman.  The three choices were:

The Get Rich Quick Club

Million Dollar Kick

Babe and Me

We were able to read about 10 pages in each book in small groups today.  We will let you know how far we were able to get in your particular book once you return.

Seatwork included:

*Complete your Quadrarama

*Continue to illustrate your artwork for your Timucua glog

SCIENCE- We only got a short bit done here...I filled a straw with water and sealed both ends with clay.  I asked the children to predict what will happen to the straw, the water, and the clay after put in the freezer over night.  What do you think will happen?  

Tomorrow we'll pull the straws out of the freezer and describe what it is we see.  This experiment might give us an idea of what happens to cracked rocks that fill with rain water on a cold, wintery day...and then have the water freeze.

We talked briefly about reading goals for the month of January.  We will have to continue that discussion tomorrow as we just ran out of time!

We look forward to having you back at school and we hope your holidays were fun-filled!

:)Mrs. Neal