With Columbus Day this week, this four day week sure went by fast! Although time went by quickly, we did a LOT of things this week!
In math, students had a Math Workshop almost every day! They learned how to add and subtract decimals, use rounding and estimating to help with the addition and subtraction of decimals, learned a new math game (Addition Top It with Decimals), and even participated in the Oreo Challenge!
The Oreo Challenge is a nationwide activity that thousands of classrooms are participating in. We used a package of Oreos to see how high we could stack them. First we made a prediction, a guess of how many Oreos we could stack, then after our first attempt, we revised our prediction and turned it into an estimate. We estimated how many Oreos we could stack based on the structure of our first stack and how many Oreos we were able to place on top of one another before the leaning tower tumbled. We will be taking a look at our class scores and submitting our class average into the Project.
In ELA, it's all about memoirs! We have immersed ourselves in memoir texts such as Thundercake by Patricia Polacco, Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant. and My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother by Patricia Polacco. The students learned about the elements of a memoir and then searched for those elements within these books. With each book, you could find a group of students searching for evidence from the text to prove that their book was indeed a memoir. To mix it up a bit, two groups did NOT have memoirs, but they didn't know who they were. It wasn't until they searched through Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting and Crab Moon by Ruth Horowitz and identified (or not) the elements of memoir that they realized they had the "mole" book. Crab Moon threw us for a loop since it did have many elements of a memoir, but there was no proof that the author was actually in the story.
In order to get ready for students to write their own memoirs, we discussed many things including focusing on a topic. Memoirs are written about a small moment or a period of time. It can be difficult to jump right into a story without giving background information first. This is something we will be working on throughout this memoir unit. Today, Friday, students began planning their memoirs. They are gathering the "ingredients" they need (details such as the people, setting, plot, dialogue, thoughts, reflections) in order to correctly "bake" their story! I am loving the ideas so far! If you are interested in reading the different topics we are writing about, visit our Kidblog site here to see!
Kudos
Kudos to Sydney who turned her organized math notes into a beautiful chart on subtracting decimals!
Kudos to Matt S who was able to stack 22 Oreo cookies! Way to go! No one was able to beat that!
Kudos to Maggie and Sofia from Mrs. Buffone's class who were close competitors with 21 Oreos in their stack. Fabulous job, girls!
Kudos to Marie who very thoughtfully translated all of her classmates' names into Arabic. Very cool, Marie!
Kudos to Caitlin, Riya, Marie, and Taveena who helped label all of the new books for our classroom library! (Sorry if I left anyone out, please let me know and I will add your name!)
I hope everyone has a safe, fun, and relaxing weekend! See you Monday!
~Mrs. K.
In math, students had a Math Workshop almost every day! They learned how to add and subtract decimals, use rounding and estimating to help with the addition and subtraction of decimals, learned a new math game (Addition Top It with Decimals), and even participated in the Oreo Challenge!
The Oreo Challenge is a nationwide activity that thousands of classrooms are participating in. We used a package of Oreos to see how high we could stack them. First we made a prediction, a guess of how many Oreos we could stack, then after our first attempt, we revised our prediction and turned it into an estimate. We estimated how many Oreos we could stack based on the structure of our first stack and how many Oreos we were able to place on top of one another before the leaning tower tumbled. We will be taking a look at our class scores and submitting our class average into the Project.
In ELA, it's all about memoirs! We have immersed ourselves in memoir texts such as Thundercake by Patricia Polacco, Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, The Relatives Came by Cynthia Rylant. and My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother by Patricia Polacco. The students learned about the elements of a memoir and then searched for those elements within these books. With each book, you could find a group of students searching for evidence from the text to prove that their book was indeed a memoir. To mix it up a bit, two groups did NOT have memoirs, but they didn't know who they were. It wasn't until they searched through Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting and Crab Moon by Ruth Horowitz and identified (or not) the elements of memoir that they realized they had the "mole" book. Crab Moon threw us for a loop since it did have many elements of a memoir, but there was no proof that the author was actually in the story.
In order to get ready for students to write their own memoirs, we discussed many things including focusing on a topic. Memoirs are written about a small moment or a period of time. It can be difficult to jump right into a story without giving background information first. This is something we will be working on throughout this memoir unit. Today, Friday, students began planning their memoirs. They are gathering the "ingredients" they need (details such as the people, setting, plot, dialogue, thoughts, reflections) in order to correctly "bake" their story! I am loving the ideas so far! If you are interested in reading the different topics we are writing about, visit our Kidblog site here to see!
Kudos
Kudos to Sydney who turned her organized math notes into a beautiful chart on subtracting decimals!
Kudos to Matt S who was able to stack 22 Oreo cookies! Way to go! No one was able to beat that!
Kudos to Maggie and Sofia from Mrs. Buffone's class who were close competitors with 21 Oreos in their stack. Fabulous job, girls!
Kudos to Marie who very thoughtfully translated all of her classmates' names into Arabic. Very cool, Marie!
Kudos to Caitlin, Riya, Marie, and Taveena who helped label all of the new books for our classroom library! (Sorry if I left anyone out, please let me know and I will add your name!)
I hope everyone has a safe, fun, and relaxing weekend! See you Monday!
~Mrs. K.
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