Monday, April 1

Welcome Back! In Math today, we went over our Measurement Assessment with a fine tooth comb. Students asked questions, I explained common mistakes, we kidded about some nonsense answers (ask about the width of a 3rd graders finger) and they circled the question with either a green mark (they made a silly mistake or didn't read the question completely but UNDERSTAND the concept) or blue mark (they DO NOT understand the concept). Please go over this assessment with your child, sign it and have them return it so that we can secure any misunderstandings within measurement. Tomorrow, we will be competing in a Yahtzee tourney! We tried to catch up with Puddlejumpers in Read Aloud but we are still a little confused right now. We are in the Down Below or Underneath and this world is very surreal. Hopefully, in the next few pages, we will grasp what is going on. At least we can appreciate the fantastical vocabulary! This week's focus in Reader's Workshop is to solidify our concepts of reading in our Guided Reading groups, increase our vocabulary and just read independently. In groups, the Red and Blue groups worked on a basketball article about the sad defeat of the Buckeyes. We talked about background knowledge needed to understand the article and all the information gained from this non-fiction resource. (They did awesome with this and taught me some things other than just appreciating Aaron Craft!) The Purple Group read a recipe for Gazpacho Soup and answered some questions about it. We discussed that although in life you don't answer questions after reading, you still go through the questions in your mind while reading. They enjoyed this but I think most were turned off by all the vegetables the soup contains. :) The Green and Yellow groups read about Dads, Greek God Style. Thankfully, a few kiddos are really up to date on their Greek Mythology and were able to help us with a few pronunciations and to keep our Greek Gods straight. We were able to have great discussion and answer questions pertaining to this passage. A week or so before break, I gave the students a benchmark assessment on words that contained generalizations we have learned this year. Today, they corrected their mistakes. We discussed how and where we can find and check spellings of unknown words. Then, they practiced this and 'fixed' their mistakes. Tomorrow, they will be writing a short story while paying attention to the spelling of words and not just the ideas. Finally, in Social Studies, we read about more recent immigrants and how, why and when they came to America.