Weekly Update

All-Star of the Week
This week Quin took the stage as our All-Star of the Week.  He brought many items to share in his Share Sack including several family pictures.  He read his favorite book The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt.  The class loved it!  He brought in a very touching letter from his mom and a picture slideshow set to music for the class to watch on the Smart Board.  On Thursday his parents joined him for a fun lunch at school.  We enjoyed having Quin as our star this week!

Reading Workshop
Students continue to work within the Mystery genre.  Each detective received their Detective Case File and mystery chapter book.  Students worked together in their Detective Clubs to make predictions before reading.  They read the title, looked at the picture on the cover, read the Table of Contents, and read the back cover of the book to help them make predictions.  Students have been meeting in their detective clubs to discuss the chapters they are reading. We modeled for students how to keep track of important clues and possible suspects. Supporting their claims with evidence is extremely important when recording ideas in their detective case file and when sharing their ideas during the detective club discussions.

 

 

Writing
Students have started to learn about writing opinion pieces.  After reading and discussing multiple mentor texts of opinion styles of writing, students created a class list of topics from thing around the school they would like to change.  They then practiced creating opinion statements and supporting those statements with reasons and examples.  We finished the week by drafting a letter to Mrs. Brzezinski about adding a vending machine to our school cafeteria.

 

 

Social Studies

We have recently embarked on our sailboat trip around the Southeast coast!  Students visited Everglades National Park, JFK Space Station in Cape Canaveral, and Jamestown, Virginia.  We even took a brief stop in Orlando, Florida to visit Disney World.  Many students brought Disney World souvenirs to share and/or wore Disney themed clothing. 



 

Math

Students are working hard in our new math unit of study.  This week we took a closer look at place values within large numbers.  Students focused on writing numbers in both standard form and expanded form, and showing larger numbers using place value blocks. 



Skate World 
Many students enjoyed the annual Hill School skating party this week.  Here are some pictures of kids from Room 13 and a couple of cuties from the Wood Family.

 

Weekly Update

All-Star of the Week

This week we joined Braeden as he shared some of his favorites with us.  He brought several wonderful pictures of his family to show us and many items in his share sack.  Some of those items include a first place medal from his jui jitsu tournament, a "Scorpion frozen in glass" souvenir from his vacation and a pocket watch with his dad's initials passed down to him.  He enjoyed sharing a lunch with both his mom and dad, and read his favorite Dr. Seuss book to the class. 

 

Reading

 



Last week students partnered up to learn more about biographies.  Each student read a book about a famous person from our history.  Together, partnerships compared and contrasted the famous people they had read about. 

This week students began our new unit of study on mysteries.  Each student has a case file with a book and information inside that will help them investigate the mystery genre.  Students studied the 'ingredients' found in mystery stories and enjoyed an episode of Scooby-Doo to practice locating those ingredients.  Soon students will join book clubs as they read and discuss mystery books in small groups.

 

 

 

 

Writing

 

Students recently wrapped up our information unit of study, where each student published a book on a topic they consider themselves an expert on.  Along with sharing the books with each other, students will partner up with a 2nd grade class next week to share their knowledge and all of their hard work. 



 

Math

 

Students just took the Unit 3 math test on Friday.  Throughout the week much review was taking place to help students perfect their understanding of measurements, clocks and graphs prior to the test on Friday.  Students measured each others jumps and graphed the class's results. 

 

Social Studies





To finish our region tour of the northeast, students made scrapbook pages in their social studies binders with the many souvenirs from stops along our train trip.  Look for these binders to come home this week!