Week 3 July 22-26

What a busy week we have had!  We spent a lot of time on the Smartboard this week working with out base ten pieces.  We used this program to help the class see what it means to "carry" when adding and "borrow" when subtracting.  We are using the term "regrouping" in the classroom. The kids have done a great job with this skill this week!  I also showed them how to make place value drawings on their own.

Here is a sample subtraction with regrouping problem.  Note the numbers crossed off on the top. I asked the class to figure out the value of 4 hundreds, 11 tens, and 11 ones. When they figured out it was 521, we then looked at the number we started with.  Place value (decomposing and composing numbers) will be a very important skill we will work on all year long.

At the bottom right, you can see another example of how to add and regroup.  This is a different way where you add all the ones, then all the tens, and all the hundreds.  Another way of breaking down the problem.

In reading we continued working on our reading strategies and added "cause and effect" to our wall. Students learned more about making inferences, context clues, and main idea. Each day we read independently and practice building stamina. We have some great readers! We continue to read Holes aloud. 

In writing we read some more anchor books to start digging deeper about possible topics to write about.  We generated a list of special places and special memories/things.  The class shared their special things when they brought them into class and then did a quick write to get out additional ideas.  We will go through the rest of the writing process with this topic.

In science we continue investigating rocks and minerals....see previous post....I will keep adding to it. 

We worked on learning expectations and specific activities for word study and took our first quiz.  We will be working on homophones the entire first marking period.  Here, the focus is on using the correct words in context, so we will be doing more activities related to word meanings.  

Specials for the week:

Monday.  None

Tuesday. Computer 

Wednesday. Art

Thursday. PE

Friday. Music

****Open House will be held this Thursday evening! 

I will be sharing specific expectations as well as some specifics about curriculum.  I look forward to seeing you there!