In reading, the class has been working toward increasing their independent reading stamina. We have had some ups and downs, but I think we are now headed in the right direction! Our mini-lessons have focused on monitoring our reading and stopping frequently as we read to check for understanding. Our Scholastic News article for the week focused on being good citizens, which ties in nicely to our social studies curriculum. We read about and discussed the difference between rights and responsibilities of citizens. The kids discovered many ways their can be good citizens at school.
During writing, students have been learning all of the parts of a complete sentence. We also reviewed the difference between nouns and verbs. Partners played a proper nouns tic-tac-toe game, and the children also worked in groups during a "beat the clock" style game to brainstorm as many verbs as they could for a given location, like "beach". Each student received their own personal dictionary to use during writing workshop. They added each of their classmates' names to the dictionary to get used to how the dictionary is organized.
We have finished practicing our spelling routines, and the class has learned many different ways to study their spelling words. On Friday, students worked together to learn how to use the Spelling City app to play games with their spelling words. This is a great website to use at home as well. Students can even take practice tests on their words.
The children finished their community projects in social studies. Each group worked together to design their own community with places to work, live, play, and solve problems. The presentations of their projects were filmed and are available to view on Seesaw. Look for the Seesaw invitation in your child's green folder to set up your account. Here are a few pictures from the creation stages of the project.
