Thursday, May 9

I am currently out in the hall, reading with and assessing the students on their reading abilities. Mrs. Thompson is in the room and doing a fabulous job (as always) with the kids. In Math, they played Geometry BINGO to review geometry terms for our next project. They also played some games and completed a Word Search on Geometry. In Read Aloud, they heard more about what the main character is choosing to do with the oodles of money he has been making. In Reader's Workshop, they read somewhat silently and then worked on their rough drafts of their travel brochures for the upcoming 4th graders. Today is the last day for them to work on their Chris Van Allsburg responses. Hopefully, they'll finish! Tomorrow, we are moving on to persuasion! Finally, they will watch a video about plants to round out the day.

Wednesday, May 8

Oh happy day! Today, in Math, we played and scored our board games. Students had to play and score at least 2 of their peers' games. (They were a lot tougher on each other than I thought they would be...) Tomorrow, we are moving on to a new topic in Math. The character in Lawn Boy, we don't know his name, found out that he has made over $58,000! Wow! We needed to discuss how stocks and investments work a little but they got the basic idea. In Reader's Workshop, we went over abbreviations and discussed some online safety from a TFK we read/completed. Then, we read travel brochures and looked at components of them. FInally, we created a template for creating a travel brochure for this class for the upcoming 4th grade students. In Writing, hopefully, more kiddos were able to finish their Chris Van Allsburg responses... others wrote freely and practiced their cursive handwriting. The state has chosen NOT to incorporate cursive into the new Common Core standards so this is the last year for that. We ended our day with Guidance with Mrs. Vidic.

Tuesday, May 7

Happy Tuesday! In Math, we finished our class work time on our board games. Tomorrow, we will be playing them and scoring them with the rubric. We read about economics in Lawn Boy during Read Aloud and found that the main character is making a lot of money by mowing lawns... I wonder how much he'll make by the end of the summer, especially now that Arnold is investing it. In Reader's Workshop, we read and worked on our workboard work. Some students are really behind but used today to get somewhat caught up. In Writer's Workshop, we once again, worked on finishing up our work with Chris Van Allsburg. We will be moving on to a new topic on Friday so you may see some of this work coming home. (Unfortunately, we don't have limited time left.) Finally, in Social Studies, we continued our work with Economy with some kiddos working on a webquest using Econopolis.

Monday, May 6

This morning, we worked on designing and creating our board games. They have today and tomorrow to finish their games. We will play them on Wednesday and I will use the rubric to score them. Ask your kiddo about their game--hopefully, they discuss the MATH involved and not just the theme. After lunch, they will be taking the TRAILS re-test. This is a mini-assessment that they first took at the beginning of the year. It assessed what they knew about resources: how to use them, when and why. Last week, we met with Mrs. Dorr to discuss their results of the first assessment and today, they will hopefully show security in the topic. After that, they will be finishing up their response pieces to Chris Van Allsburg and then working on understanding Economics. I will be out this afternoon so hopefully things will run smoothly!

TGIFriday, May 3

Today was absolutely gorgeous and we took advantage of that by going outside for special. (Mr. B was out and there wasn't a sub...) In Math, we kept on working with our board games. We began a new book about Economics in Read Aloud by Gary Paulsen, The Lawn Boy. This is a short book about a young entrepreneur (a 12 year old boy starts a lawn mowing business). In Reader's Workshop, we worked with abbreviations and on an Ohio Studies Weekly about people with character. Some kiddos are finished with their response to Van Allsburg and others are in all different phases of the writing process. Finally, we finished our day with Economics work in preparation for our upcoming field trip.

Thursday, May 2

These kids are so independent that I've been very bored lately... it's the goal I wanted and longed for all year but now it is kind of sad... In Math, they worked on their projects designing board games. (They let me help with cutting some things out though!) We finished Puddlejumpers and everyone applauded! It was a very good book--a little confusing every now and then with the fantastical parts (puddlejumpers, created language, Down Below, etc.) but I think they all agree that it was worth it. I also think some are more interested in the genre of Fantasy now. In Reader's Workshop, we read, worked on vocabulary (funny words like gobbledygook and poppycock), read and played some Funglish. In Writer's Workshop, they continued working on their reponse pieces for Chris Van Allsburg. They are writing 5 and 6 paragraph papers with not too many qualms lately--wow! We completed the day with Social Studies and learning about Economics and the Factors of Production.

Wednesday, May 1

Happy May! And what a gorgeous way to begin the month--sunshine and warm temperatures! Today, in Math, we worked on creating our board games. Most everyone is working very diligently, however, I worry that they are more concerned with the artistic design than the math behind the project. Hopefully, everything will come and fall into place with the math and the newness of the project will move to the back burner. In Puddlejumpers, Ernie made it to the furnace in the Down Below and is headed to place the crystal acorn into her mouth to fix everything... it is soo suspenseful, they all said, "NOOOO!!" when I stopped reading today. :) In Reader's Workshop, students read independently and worked on elapsed time in a Comic Strip Math worksheet. In Writer's Workshop, we continued our work with responding to Chris Van Allsburg but today focused on writing a rough draft from our notes. We finished the day with our second try at making Goop...and were successful!!