This week we continued to apply our questioning skills. We asked questions throughout the Curious George books and also tried a story called, The Other Side. The students are getting good at thinking of questions that begin with: who, what, where, when and why. They also ask many will questions. This continues to help them make predictions about what they are reading. We also introduced a poetry genre to ask questions about called, Denitra Brown Class Clown. We will continue questioning next week and will compare inferential versus text based questions.
Grammar Focus: We started the week by reviewing verbs and moved on to looking at prefixes that are added to words and how they can support us in trying to figure out the meaning of an umknown word. We are also starting to look at proper nouns.
Sight Words of the Week: when, before, does
Writing Focus: This week we started an opinion piece about our favorite dessert. We hope to finish up the piece before moving to our next writing focus of “How To” writing in December. We are also writing from the perspective of being a passenger on the Mayflower. They are writing as if they are keeping a diary.
Math: We have continued to practice and apply strategies to solve double- digit addition problems. We have also started to learn about money and values of money. We are purchasing items and writing totals in dollar and cent notation. We are also counting mixed piles of coins and making trades and finding values. We will finish up Unit 2 next week and will take our end of chapter assessment. We will then move to Unit 3 which focuses on measurement, polygons and patterns.
Social Studies We are continuing our simulation game. This week we built houses and learned about the Native Americans who helped the Pilgrims survive in the New World. We also continued the game by thinking of foods we eat. We had to eliminate all duplicate responses to determine the number of acres of land we could plant. The students are learning a great deal and enjoying working together to solve problems.