We had a great week!
Today we celebrated Constitution Day...we started off with the Preamble and I was pleasantly surprised that the kids had done a lot with it last year...we were even serenaded by the kids in Mrs. Weeks' class from last year...they had learned it in song! They taught it to our class and then we went and shared it with Mrs. Humerick's class...I have a lot of performers in this class! :-)
We found words in the Preamble that were hard to understand and we defined them....discussing the purpose for the Constitution as we went through it. Then the kids took a pretest about Constitution trivia....they were suprised to see how much they still had to learn! We watched a video from Discovery Streaming entitled, "Shhhhh...We're Writing the Constitution!" The kids were able to change their answers from their pretest to the correct answers as they heard the information. They may have started with a 5 out of 10 in the pretest, but they all ended with 100%...they are excellent information gatherers...little sponges ready to soak it all up!
We finished our Constitution information gathering in the computer lab...we visited a site that was new to 90% of our class...BRAIN POP...it is located under every subject on the sidebar of the blog...it has many free videos and games that are all curriculum related...it also has many options that in order to use, you must be a subscriber...UES does not have a subscription, so we stick with the free stuf!! The Constitution movie was free, and it was followed by a quiz that each student took. Then the kids got some time to explore the site a little. It is a wonderful site for kids and educators...visit it with your child sometime soon!
We have been focusing on government in Social Studies this week, so the Constitution was a great tie in! We have discussed the definition of government, the similarities and differences in local, state, and national governments, and we will continue this next week.
In Math this week, we have been working with large numbers. Estimating, adding, subtracting, and playing games with large numbers took up most of our time. I worked with small groups that showed needs on their pretests...we worked on rounding one day, addition with regrouping another, one day on subtraction with zeroes...and those kids that did not need review were busy working on extensions using these skills. Today the kids were given a quiz on large numbers...I'm looking forward to seeing their brains on paper!!
Language Arts has been fun this week! We are using novels to continue our focus on the Mosaic of Thought strategies...we have been perfecting asking questions and what to do when we hit "clunks" in our reading. These kids are voracious readers...I'm excited to get my assessments complete and get them into level appropriate novels. We will continue with reading strategies next week.
In Writing we finally got a true Writer's Workshop underway this week. We had children drafting, peer conferencing, and revising. I will continue to introduce the other "pit stops" in the upcoming mini-lessons...these kids LOVE the workshop and they are producing wonderful writing pieces!
MISCELLANEOUS
Your kids brought home some graded papers today. Please review the papers with your child and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. They also have checklists in their Take Home Folders. Please sign the checklist and place it back into the folder to be returned on Monday. Thanks for your help with this!If you haven't had a chance to sign up to become a PTA member...there is another membership form in your child's Take Home Folder. Please consider becoming a member...the PTA does and provides wonderful things for our school!
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend...looks like it will be great weather...enjoy your families!
