Week Seven

We had a very busy three days and learned so many new things! This group of students LOVES learning! 🙂

Reading

This week, we read Ada Twist Scientist by Andrea Beaty. Ada is a student in the same class as Rosie Revere Engineer and Iggy Peck Architect, two books we read earlier this year. All three of these fictional children have taught us so much about using our growth mindset and how math and science are part of the world around us! The students worked on identifying the life lessons in these books and now we are trying to apply them just like Ada, Rosie, and Iggy did in their stories!

The students studied the differences between questions and statements and next week they will learn about commands and exclamations! We will also begin studying how to edit sentences and paragraphs. 

We played some fun phonics games this week where the students had to read “Bossy e” words. Bossy e words are words that end in a silent “e” and contain a long vowel sound. In class, we joke that the “e” is being a rude boss and making those vowels say their names! You find this pattern in words like hope, like, game, cube, and Pete. We will continue to study this pattern next week.

Here are some of our readers playing the phonics game:

          

Vocabulary

The students did an amazing job on their first vocabulary test today! We work on these words throughout the week by reading them in the context of a story, using them in fill in the blank activities, and discussing the words’ multiple meanings. Next week, our words will be: Bench, bridge, cross, crowd, deep, fresh, frown, signal, travel, and worry.

Spelling

This week the students worked on words that contained the long and short “o” sound. These words will be assessed next Wednesday, the 11th. 

Writing

This week the students picked a “mystery food” that they described with as many details as possible. The students were not allowed to tell their audience the name of their food and they had to use enough details that their reader could see it in their mind! The students will share their writing with their peers next week and we will see if we can guess their mystery food based on the writer’s use of details! I have read some very detailed writing about avocados, birthday cakes, cauliflower, corn on the cob, and more! Next, we will write stories about something from our own lives and fill the story with details so that it comes alive for the reader!

Math

The students worked on solving addition and subtraction problems and worked on fact families. A fact family is made up of three numbers that can be added and subtracted like this:

4 + 7 = 11

7 + 4 = 11

11 – 7 = 4

11 – 4 = 7

If you can solve one of these problems, then that information can help you solve the rest!

The students also worked on solving addition and subtraction word problems, “In and Out” tables where a rule has to be applied to each side (like +10 or -3), and we used pan balances and spring scales to find the weights of various items! You can help your child notice how much things weigh by hunting for ounces and pounds on food packaging. Next week, we will continue working on these skills and study place value into the thousands.