What do you call a pig with three eyes?

Sorry for no post today - I'm off to a series of meetings... :-(

What goes tick, tick, woof, woof?

Today, after the usual Morning Festivities, which included singing on old favorite ("Down by the Bay"), we had Reader's Workshop.  Today, to extend our lesson from yesterday, we worked on what we're calling "Cover Questions" - looking at the cover of a book and using the "Cover Clues" to formulate a question or two about what the book will be about, its genre, or style.  As the kids went off to read, they worked on making questions and then reading to answer them.  All of the kids also traded books for the Independent Reading bookbags.  At the end of workshop, then, each child shared one of the questions that they made, as well as if their reading thus far answered the question or not.

During Writer's Workshop, we are working on thinking more flexibly and creatively about stories, so I showed the kids a series of photos from old National Geographics and had them make up interesting and detailed stories about the people and objects in the photos.  As you can probably expect, there were some very, well, interesting and entertaining stories told.  Good stuff.

After writing, it was time for lunch and recess, and then back up to our room for literacy work time.  Tuesday spellers got their words today, and then we worked on thinking critically and in more depth about the two Stone Soup stories that we have read thus far (this one, and this one, for those of you keeping score at home...).  We are analyzing the stories for main characters, setting, and plot.  Then we were on our way to the Media Center for class with Mrs. Hennen.  After media, we headed next door to the computer lab for Math Workshop.  The kids played games on our class math website, which you can certainly access from home, if you like (www.comp240.blogspot.com).

When we got back to our room from the lab, it was simply too nice of a day (in NOVEMBER!!!) to not go outside to play for a bit, so we headed out to the playground to finish up.  After that, it was time to pack up and head home.

Why can't you ever play jokes on snakes?

Back again to the blog - I apologize for the long absence.  I've a ridiculous meeting schedule after school for the past several weeks, which has now cleared up, so I'll be back to posting Monday - Thursday as often as I can.

After our normal AM routines, we celebrated our new Star of the Week - Owen.  He read his poster to us, and then answered questions about his info.  Then we moved on to Reader's Workshop - today the mini-lesson was about "Cover Clues" - looking at the covers of books to get clues about what the book will be about, as well as the genre.  When the kids went out to read, they were looking at the covers to try to get clues, and then we shared their 'discoveries' at the end-of-workshop share.

During Writer's Workshop, we began looking at pre-writing skills - the kids divided a paper into 8 sections, and then planned (not wrote) a story - we will go back and write the stories in the coming days.

After that, it was time for lunch and recess, an d then back up to our room for Literacy Time.  During this time, we will be doing out Spelling, which we call 'Word Work' (your child will either be a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday Speller - and bring home their words that day, as well as have their test [we call it a 'check-in']).  We also began a "Story Study" about the traditional Stone Soup story - we will be reading several versions of the story (today we read this version) and comparing them.

After that, we headed down to the gym for class, and then back up for Math Workshop.  Today in Math Workshop we worked on writing numbers sentences for subtraction (7-5=2, for instance) that relate to stories and situations.

At the end of the day, we started a new Science/Health unit on Nutrition and Food, which will lead directly into our Stone Soup celebration in two weeks (more info to come soon).  Today we talked about foods that are good for our bodies and foods that are not so good for our bodies.

What kind of truck gets the hiccups?

Today, after morning work time and Morning Meeting we learned a new song.  Well, it wasn’t new song for most of them, but it was new to learn all of the words, I think.  We sang all of the verses of “On Top of Spaghetti.”  We also had a small lesson about compound words as we looked at all of the verses.

After our song, we started Reader’s Workshop.  Today the mini-lesson was about recognizing “informative texts” as a genre, as well as looking at what the author did in our model text to show emphasis (she made some words bigger in the text and others smaller to show that the moon was getting bigger or smaller).  When the kids went off to read, they looked for ways that the authors of their books did the same thing (they noticed CAPTIAL LETTERS, “slanty” letters, different colors, and different sizes).  We shared our discoveries at the end-of-workshop share.

After reading, we started Writer’s Workshop.  Today we read a couple of books by Donald Crews – Bigmama’s and Shortcut.  They are both examples of small moments (what we have been working on).  The first is a series of longer events (one summer vacation when he was small), and the second is on episode from that summer, stretched out to a book length.  The kids are writing the same way, so many of them tried to zoom in on a smaller moment from one of their larger small moment, like Donald did.  We had to delay the end of our writing until after gym – our reading and writing both took longer than we had thought.  At the end-of-workshop share, they all talked about how they zoomed in on a small moment.

After writing, we headed down for lunch and recess, and then back up to our room for Author Study – we are still studying Vera B. Williams.  The main things on which we are focusing are characters, plot, and connections.  Today we read A Chair for Always, and talked about how Vera included the many characters in the story.  After that, we headed down to the gym for class with Mr. Hill and Mr. Peterson.

After gym we had Math Workshop – today we finished up the math shape books that we began on Friday.  Since we got a bit of a late start on math due to writing, we worked for most for the rest of the afternoon on that.  Before we knew it, it was time to clean up and head home!

Where do you take a sick wasp?

Sorry for no post yesterday - it was a long, meeting-filled afternoon and early evening.  I'll post again this afternoon.

Where do you take a sick wasp?

Sorry no blog today - an unfortunately long series of meetings after school.  I'll rerurn tomorrow.

Have a good night!

Jake

What kind of jam can you never eat?

We had a bit of a goofy day today, schedule-wise.  We all adapted well, though, so it was good.

This morning, we had a short Morning Meeting, and then headed up to the computer lab for the final segment of the MAP assessment (2^nd of two math parts).  After sitting quietly for so long, we had a bit of free time in the classroom when we got back to our room.  After that, we got our jackets on (though we didn’t need them) and went across the street to Mount Olivet to their pumpkin patch.  They invited us to come and hear some fall stories – we got to sit on hay bales and walk through their pumpkin maze.  It was really fun, and by the time we got back to school it was time for lunch!

After lunch, the kids went out for recess, and then back up to our room for Read Aloud – we finally finished the Cam Jansen book!  When we finished Read Aloud, we went up to the art room for class with Mr. Fairbanks. 

When we got back to our room, we had a shared writing lesson – we collectively wrote a thank you letter to the nice people at Mount Olivet (in case you hear about them, the story teller was called “Pocketella” [she had pockets on her dress, and she was a “tella” of stories] and the other host was named Jackie – she was dressed in a pumpkin suit... I know, fun, right?).  The kids also made little pumpkins and drew a picture of their favorite thing from the trip, all to send over to them tomorrow.

After that, we had Science Lab to wrap up the day.  We continued our study of geology, looking at the vials of sand that we mixed with water yesterday in hopes of seeing the separation of layers of water, silt, and sand.  Unfortunately, most of the vials got re-shaken, so we’ll have a better look at that tomorrow (hopefully…).  Today we worked on making hypotheses about why the sand and water behaved the way they did, and where the middle layer of silt came from.

Before we knew it, it was time to pack up and head home!