Spotlight On...

...Snow Day Fun~ Part 2~

Wow!  It looks like you all had a great time in the snow!  Thanks for sharing your day with us!  See you tomorrow.

SPOTLIGHT ON...

...the SNOW DAY!
Here we are enjoying Juno- the Blizzard.  Remember to send your pictures along!  

Our Week in Review

  

It was a busy week in Room 24!  We got to meet our new student teacher, Miss Cote.  We are excited for her to begin teaching us next week!

We have been working hard to learn all about essay writing and how to write essays. We have written our theses and framed our essays.  Next week we will write our drafts.  We have also been discussing adjectives and how they can be used to improve our writing.  We will continue to discuss adjectives next week, and will have a quiz toward the end of the week.  

We took our math assessment on Wednesday.  Mrs. Merten was very proud of all of us for working so hard on the challenging topic of fractions.  We have continued our study of fractions ~ learning how to add and subtract fractions with like denominators this week.  We will continue this for the next few weeks, and will have an assessment about this topic before February Vacation.  The children have been practicing their math facts as well!  We noticed great improvement during our most recent game of Around the World!

We are about halfway through reading Snow Treasure.  What a wonderful adventure story!  The children have really enjoyed learning about this time in history and are so excited to find out what happens to the children and to the gold!  While reading, we have been working on the following objectives:

• to understand a character's feelings, and to show evidence of how they are feeling
• to think about the author's writing style and to find evidence of this
• to make connections with the characters
• to understand the concept of cause --> effect

The children have been encouraged to continue working on these skills during their zone time at school and during their independent reading time at home.  These are skills which can be written on weekly reading logs as well.

We began our journey across the US this week in the Northeast. We will continue to learn about this next week.

Congratulations to our class!  We used 30 of our 44 points (earned through excellent behavior during specials this year)!  We chose to watch a movie for our reward, and enjoyed watching the Wizard of Oz today!  We brought Oz-like snacks, flying monkeys, and dogs in a basket; and we even experienced the literary technique of the "cliff hanger" as we watched this movie. 

We have been working on earning these points almost all year!

The children have also responded to the Terrific Teamwork award! Thank you to those who have commented on our blog this week!  Our teams enjoy receiving this recognition!  Here are the most recent "Terrific Teams"!

Terrific Teamwork

Congratulations to our Terrific Teamwork Winners from Wednesday!  Way to go!

Terrific Teamwork

Teams will have the opportunity to earn the "Terrific Teamwork" Award (see below). Congratulations to our first "team" of winners!

• For working together to solve problems
• For helping one another
• For considering everyone’s ideas and for giving each team member a chance to speak

Our Week in Review

The cold temperatures didn't stop us for enjoying recess, though it was indoor recess!  Our class set up a "Connect Four" tournament.  What a fun way to spend our 20 minutes!  Several students have also been working during this time to help Mrs. Harn with a library book display.

During math this week, we have continued to learn about fractions.  We enjoyed a discussion about "doubling" a fraction.  Mrs. Merten was very proud of everyone for agreeing/disagreeing so respectfully with one another.  We will continue to practice using fractions on Tuesday, and our test is scheduled for Wednesday.  Please remind your child to check in (before Wednesday) with Mrs. Merten if there are any questions about this topic.

We have continued to practice identifying characters' feelings through our Interactive Read Aloud, Snow Treasure. Some children have even been tracking this during nightly reading!  Way to go!  We have also been looking at the author's craft and how to "read like writers".  Snow Treasure is filled with our favorite, the CLIFFHANGER!

We have been practicing writing essays in teams this week.  We worked on "Pushing our Thinking", and are reading to craft thesis statements next week.

We have continued to learn about weather in science, and will be studying the Water Cycle in the coming weeks.  Many of us chose to complete the extra credit project- Creating and Using a Barometer.  Way to Go!  We will discuss the results of this on Tuesday.  Here are some of our projects!

We started our unit about the Regions of the United States with an overview of regions this week.  We will begin our "Journey Across the U.S." on Tuesday.  The first stop?  The Northeast!

There will be no school on Monday due to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.  Have a wonderful weekend!