Setting

Today we learned that a story can have more than one setting. We also discovered that the setting really helps us to visualize the story. When we know where and when a story takes place, it makes it easier to create a mental picture. We looked at verbs that end with an -s suffix today. We analyzed the words we sorted to figure out what each word had in common and how they were different than nouns. We learned how to write a question at the beginning of our writing to help hook our readers. This question should be about the topic but make the reader want to know more. Do you like going to the movies? Come back soon to find out about our adventures in descriptive writing!

Homework- Read the decodable reader and add it to your book box. Practice your spelling words.

If You Take a Mouse to the Movies

Today we practiced visualizing as we read If You Take a Mouse to the Movies. We discovered we all had different sketches and they didn't necessarily match the pictures in the book. Why? We all have different schema and different experiences. Visualizing helps us to understand and remember what we read. We also sorted plural and singular nouns and learned that the -s is a suffix. We add that to the end of some nouns to show that it is more than one thing. We created a web when we used sensory details to describe going to the movies. We also learned how to add 3 numbers today. Finally, we learned about communities and map skills.

Homework- Read your just right book. Complete the home link.

The Very Stuffed Turkey

Today we explored farm life with the story, The Very Stuffed Turkey. We sorted animals into farm and not farm categories. We wrote a note to Turkey inviting him to our house for Thanksgiving. We read the book and retold the story in groups. We also looked at maps and followed the map that Turkey used to go to his friend's houses. Finally, we did a farm animal capsule experiment. We predicted which farm animal our capsule would turn in to and then observed the 'hatching' of the capsules. We learned that only one student made the correct prediction, Landen. We had a great day!

Homework- Read the poem and have your lucky listener sign the sheet. Bring your notebook back on Tuesday. Have a great Thanksgiving!

Fishing for 10

Today we practiced identifying the combinations of 10 by playing 'Fishing for 10'. We took a quick check over asking and answering questions. We wrote in our journals and we played a game to practice making real and nonsense words with our glued sounds -an, -am, and -all.

Homework- Read your just right book and complete your home link.

Kevin Henkes

Today we practiced using our text to answer questions. We finished writing our bee reports and we reviewed the combinations of 10. Finally, we read all about Kevin Henkes in our Scholastic News.

Homework- Read the decodable reader and add it to your book box. Practice your spelling words. Bring your progress report back signed.

More About Bees

Today we read more about bees, collected facts and finished our bee report. We used a graphic organizer and crayons to mark the topic sentence (the green-go sentence), the facts (the yellow-slow down sentences), and the wrap-up (the red-stop sentence). This helped us to organize our writing and prepared us to write our paragraph. We learned about our brain as a muscle. When we practice and learn, the brain gets smarter.

Homework- Read the poem, 'I Ate Too Much' and have your lucky listener sign the sheet. Read your leveled reader about bees. PLEASE bring both items back on Monday. Sign the progress report and send it back on Monday.

Reading Detectives

Today we learned how to answer questions by finding and underlining the evidence from our text. We read a short story called Katie's Secret and identified the character, setting and events in the story. Before we answered the questions, we used a different colored crayon to underline where we found the answers in the text. Good readers ask and answer questions to show that they understand a story. We also learned how to add doubles in math class. This is an additional adding strategy to use to solve problems. Finally, we took a quick check over our Social Studies unit.

Homework- Read your just right book and complete your home link.

Honey Bees

Today we learned all about honey bees. We did a closed sort with bee vocabulary words, we read about bees, we brainstormed facts about bees, we wrote about bees, we created bees and we watched a video about bees. We had a bee-utiful day :)).

Homework- Read Honey Bees from your reading text. Bring the book back tomorrow. Practice your sight words.

Super Power!

Today we learned about tally charts and bar graphs. We did a survey in the class. What super hero power would you like to have? That was our question. Our choices were: to fly, to be invisible or to have super strength. After we collected the data we learned how to make a bar graph and then analyze it. Most of the students wanted to be invisible. They had all kinds of plans for that!

Homework- Read your just right book. Complete the home link.

Pete the Cat

Today we practiced answering questions about the book, Pete the Cat- I Love My White Shoes. Then we made Pete with our favorite shoe color. We sorted words based on the number of syllables it had and then we discovered that a syllable has at least one vowel in it. We wrote about something of our choice and we had math rotations today. We played number bond games on the computer. We learned about Base-10 blocks and we conducted a survey.

Homework- Read the decodable reader and add it to your book box. Read your just right book. Practice your spelling words.

Too Many Tamales

Today we had our reading celebration!! We were celebrating the end of our unit on comprehension strategies. We reviewed our reading strategies using a tree for an analogy. Alone the tree is quite boring (just reading the words) but when we add the leaves it makes the tree so much more appealing (thinking through the text).  We got to practice using our strategies with the book Too Many Tamales. Then we got to taste tamales. We had a great time! Thank you for joining us.

Homework- Read the poem, 'I Do Not Like November' and have your lucky listener sign the sheet. Read your leveled reader and PLEASE bring both back on Monday. Thank you!

The Big Circle

Today we learned how to ask questions before, during and after our story, The Big Circle. Tomorrow we will find the answers to our questions. We practiced measuring objects using blocks, paper clips, and Popsicle sticks. We read about calendars and learned about their importance. We also practiced spelling our word wall words with the game: Write, Cover, Spell, Check. You can use this at home to help you practice your words.

Homework- Read The Big Circle from your reading text. Bring the book back tomorrow. Practice your new spelling words from your homework sheet: be, this, from, I, have.

Measurement

Today we learned how to measure objects by comparison. We also found out that knowing what you are measuring is very important. Are we measuring length or width? We learned that good readers ask questions before, during and after reading. This helps us to understand what we are reading.

Homework- Complete the home link and read your just right book.

Asking Questions

Today we learned about a new reading comprehension strategy: asking questions. We found out that good readers ask questions about their reading to help them understand the text. We sorted questions and sentences. We determined that questions end with a question mark and usually begin with a question word like: what, when, where, who, why or how. We took our word test, math assessment and a reading check-up. We were busy, busy, busy.

Homework- Read your decodable reader and add it to your book box.

Life in the Forest

Today we learned about another type of writing: informational. We read the text Life in the Forest, identified animals that live in the forest and then asked questions about the animals. We used an organizer to answer three questions: Where do they live? What do they eat? and What do they look like? Then we used our information to write a paragraph about the animal. We learned all about Bossy E today. We made words with the 'E' telling the A to say its name. :))

Homework- Read the poem, 'Pumpkins' and have your lucky listener sign the sheet. Read your leveled reader book and bring both back on Monday. Don't forget to let me know about the Reading Celebration. Have a great weekend!

A Duck Can't Be President

Today we learned how adults go through the voting process in our Scholastic News. We also connected this magazine to the real world. We continued to write narratives and we reviewed for our math test. We practiced our -all words with a spinner game.

Homework- Read your just right book and complete the math link. Don't forget to let me know if you are coming to the Reading Celebration next Friday. Thank you!

Calculators

Today we learned how to identify -all words using picture clues. We made a web about the things in a community. We learned that schools, buildings, people, and families make-up a community. Communities are places where people live and work. We read about community workers in the text, Who Works Here? We made connections to our own neighborhood workers. We continued to write fictional narratives and I was so pleased to see so many of the students writing about different topics. We learned how to use calculators to skip count today in math.

Homework- Read Who Works Here? in your reading text and return the book tomorrow. Study your sight words.

Text-to-Text Connections

Today we made text-to-text connections when we read the book, Clifford for President. We were reminded of many things that happened in Duck for President. We continued to write fictional narratives but this time we organized our thoughts on a beginning, middle and end graphic. We are going to use this organizer to add details and make our own stories. We practiced using frames and arrows diagrams to find rules in patterns and we learned about the glued sound -all. We made -all words and found many of those words in our reading.

Homework- Read your just right book and complete the math link. If you haven't already turned your grade card envelope in, please do so as soon as possible. Also, don't forget to RSVP for our reading celebration. Thank you!!