March 13-17

What a busy, exciting week! I promise next week will be much calmer. ;)

Reader's Workshop:

This week there were NO leveled readers. We used this week to get a jump start on passion projects. We compiled everyone's research and started making dash facts for certain kids and brainstormed ideas. This took days but everyone is well on their way to having beautiful books. Everyone did received new word study words.

Writer's Workshop:

This fell on our camping day so we wrote letters home from the forest. These were hilarious and so creative. Please have your child read their letter today!

Math Workshop:

This week we rotated through a new tub dealing with building and creating your own word problem. You chose two numbers, a thing and a person. You plug in the items to the word problem formula and then solve! Example: I pulled out the numbers 5 and 29, the thing apples and the name of Ms. Alicia. My word problem would be "I have 5 apples. Ms. Alicia has 29 apples. We have 34 apples all together.: 5+29=35. For kids who are ready, they can also create the reverse operation. 29-5=5.

Camping Day: Thank you to everyone who shared a tent with us. The kids had a blast! We read Bailey Goes Camping by Kevin Henkes and really enjoyed our own camping day. Lots of special memories.

Thematic Unit:

We are still studying authors but this is the last week before we start artists. We read MANY books by Kevin Henkes and rotated through 4 centers:

1. After reading Crysanthamum, plot your name on the name bar graph and see how it compares to others. Answer questions like who has the longest? Shortest? How many more letters would you need to be as long as ____?
2. Choose two characters from the stories we read and compare and contrast them on a venn diagram.
3. After reading Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, make your own purse/bag. Learn about the different values of coins and choose your own amount of money to include in your purse/bag.
4. Read Egg by Kevin Henkes. Using liquid water colors and feathers, paint a picture. Imagine if birds had feathers that left colors behind them! How beautiful would the sky be?

Auction Book:
These are due tomorrow!

Pennies: Please bring in 5-10 dirty pennies for tomorrow's science experiment.

Leprechaun Traps: The traps are awesome and the kids are so excited to try to trap a leprechaun!

Have a great weekend,
Mrs. Schultz