Weekly Update 9/14/19

We had our second round of collaborative library in our classroom with Mrs. Lavine. During this time, the students have been learning how to successfully login to laptops, access the Internet, and properly shut down and turn off the devices.

In math, we spent the week practicing strategies to subtract basic facts through 20, which included counting back to subtract on a number line and using doubles facts. In our final part of Chapter 1 we will focus on seeing how addition and subtraction are related.

Our reading groups are now up and running. Students are practicing making connections to what they read. Connections can be text-to-self, text-to-text, or text-to-world.

In writing, we have started our personal narrative unit. Children worked through the brainstorming and planning stages this week, and each student has selected a memory about a special place to write about. The class is now in the drafting stage, and our focus is on including descriptive details and sound effects to help bring the stories to life!

In science, we read the book The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins to see how scientists sometimes make drawings and  models to help them learn about new things. The students continued to study parts of objects and infer what they could belong to, as well as what their function might be. The children are beginning to learn that objects can be made of a variety of materials that have different properties.

Mrs. Maddock taught her first lesson with our class this week. The lesson focused on why we have rules at school. Students brainstormed rules and classified them into "things that keep us safe" and "ways to be respectful". They worked together to make a poster and all signed it as a reminder of how we can work together to make Long a great place to learn. Mrs. Maddock will be coming to teach a lesson every other week this year.