Week Seventeen

We had another busy week in Room 104.  We continued our study of fairy tales in both reading and writing. We also got a lot done looking at arrays and repeated addition in math. Finally, we started working on some secret fun projects to finish before Winter Break!

Our ELA Block included new spelling lists and more cursive writing. We're doing great!  In RUOS, we continued our "If/Then" unit called Studying Characters and Their Stories. We focused much of the week on narrators (or who is telling the story) and comparing and contrasting fairy tale stories. We read "Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters" and "The Rough-Face Girl," comparing and contrasting the setting, characters, and plot. We also tried reading aloud as the narrator or characters, changing our voices as needed. In WUOS, we kept writing fractured fairy tales. We will pick our best, edit, and rewrite it for a class book next week. Lastly, we talked about past tense verbs in language.

In our afternoon block, we spent the week looking at culture and working on some special projects in Social Studies. In math, we continued module 6 on the foundations of multiplication and division. We spent more time on arrays. We created arrays with square tiles, used them to compose rectangles arrays with square tiles, used drawings of arrays to solve problems with repeated addition, and related math doubles to even numbers. We keep counting by 2s, 3s, 4s, and 5s to prepare to multiply, too.  We spent a little time on time and symmetry as well to review what we know! And of course we had our math centers and workshop.

We also had some of our cool specials, too. We continued our Mondrian Art with Ms. Sundquist.  We had a lot of fun singing and dancing to "The Nutcracker," playing games, and using xylophones and other instruments in Music with Ms. Altshuler. We learned more school vocabulary and made more crazy stories in Spanish with Sra. Colmenero. We read a story and checked out books with Mr. Withers in the library. We went through the awesome Heartland Adventure in P.E. with Mr. Simatic. We also met up with our Reading Buddies for some fun with Mr. Manus' class on Friday and celebrated Board Game/Pajama Day with the whole school on Wednesday!

Finally, we had a new student "Star of the Week." We spent the week learning about Jessamyn. She made a poster, told us about her favorite things, and brought in some cool toys to share. The class enjoyed getting to learn all about Jessamyn!  We also made postcards for her on Friday!

Looking ahead, our Fairy Tale Party is next Friday. It is also the last week before Winter Break. Woo hoo!  Have a great weekend!