Weekly Update 10/25/19

We had a full week with our Powell Hall field trip, pajama day, Unity Day, and publishing & project celebrations!

Students partnered with children from Mr. Jobst's class to read their published personal narrative stories and share their completed social studies models and maps that depicted a place from one of their narratives. Students did a wonderful job practicing their communication skills, and they were also respectful listeners!

For Unity Day, the class collaborated together as a team to create a structure out of canned goods that were donated. They started out wanting to build a "circular tower" and it morphed into a castle as they kept creating and adjusting the structure. I was impressed by the compliments and positive feedback the children gave each other throughout the process. The cans will now be donated to a local food pantry. Thank you to all who donated! Students also wore orange to bring about awareness and wrote notes of kindness to family and friends inspired by our reading of Kindness is Cooler with Mrs. Ruler.

In math, we have finished out lessons for Chapter 5 on place value. The students have been skip counting larger numbers by 5s, 10s, and 100s. They have also been comparing numbers and writing numbers in word form. We will be reviewing Monday and Tuesday, and our test will be on Wednesday. Review pages will come home to help students study. It is important that students know their place value positions of the ones, tens, and hundreds place.

In reading, the children have been practicing their visualizing skills. They listened to the story The Gruffalo without seeing the pictures and used the details from the story to sketch what they thought the creature called the Gruffalo looked like. Then, they were able to compare their ideas to the actual illustrations. The students have also started a short descriptive writing piece to sharpen their skills at using adjectives and comparisons, which help readers to visualize. They are using their own artwork from art class as their inspiration. More to come next week!

Flat Stanleys returned from California, Hawaii, and Branson, MO!

Weekly Update 10/18/19

In math, we have completed the first four lessons in Chapter 5, which covers place value. Students are learning about the place value positions of the ones, tens, and hundreds. They have practiced making numbers with base ten block models, as well as writing them in standard and expanded form. Math centers have been updated to review concepts from previous chapters, including arrays. Students are also completing math activities in Seesaw. Look for some new posts on Seesaw coming soon! 

In reading our focus has been on identifying the story elements of fiction books, including the setting, characters, problem, and solution. Students are working on being able to retell the events of a story in order. The children are also making their final touches to their published personal narrative stories.

The children have been highly engaged in their final projects for our maps and geography unit in social studies. Each child has been building a model of a special place that they wrote about in one of their personal narrative stories. They used recyclable materials to make their models and collaborated with their writing partners to help with ideas and problem-solving. Now, students will make maps that correspond to the models of the places. Next week, students will get a chance to celebrate all of their hard work and share out their writing, models, and maps with their peers.

More Flat Stanleys have come back to Long!

Weekly Update 10/12/19

We had a fantastic field trip to the Magic House! Students were able to try out what it's like to work at a job in a community, get paid, and spending their paychecks on both wants and needs. They also worked in groups to plan a family budget. This was a wonderful preview to a social studies unit on economics that will take place later this year. Thank you to all of the parent volunteers who helped with the field trip!

In math, we have completed Chapter 2, and will be starting Chapter 5 on place value beginning next week. To help review concepts about arrays and urban communities, the children did a cross-curricular project to create "urban arrays" on skyscrapers. Each child designed an array to create the windows on their buildings. They also wrote both a repeated addition sentence and a multiplication sentence to match their array.

Children are working on asking questions about the texts they read in their reading groups. They are questioning before, during, and after their reading to help monitor their comprehension of the stories. In writing, students have each selected one of their personal narrative drafts to publish. We will be publishing over the next few days to get ready to celebrate the end of our narrative unit.

Our study of maps has continued with students learning about the difference between physical and political maps. We reviewed the continents and oceans, as well as a variety of other landforms and bodies of water. With the help of Mrs. Levine, the children also completed a Seesaw activity to help them practice giving directions on a map.