Weeks in Review

We worked on synonyms.

Our writing focus one week was on writing instructions.  I started the lesson by putting this paper on the board.  (Only 1 out of 25 students followed the directions.)

Then, groups worked together to put sentences in order to give instructions.

I introduced our iPads to students during their reading group times.

We had a couple of special days:  Dads and Donuts and Moms and Muffins.

We worked with verbs-past, present, future-for a good 3 weeks.  Here are a couple of activities we did to practice identifying and writing verbs.

We made an "All About Me" story.  The kids wrote 2 pages about when they were little (using verbs in the past), 2 pages about now (using verbs in the present), and 2 pages about when they grow up (using verbs in the future).

In math this past week, we started adding 2-digit numbers with and without regrouping.  

Finally, we made an inference map about Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type.  The purpose of the inference map is to use clues from the story to draw conclusions about the story.

We have also been working on writing persuasive letters (to you, the parents).  Be on the look-out for your letter to come in the mail later this week.  This week in writing, we will be writing an opinion paragraph, also using persuasive elements.  We will be writing an opinion paragraph about why they (the students) should be chosen to be one of Santa's reindeer.  Speaking of holidays, we started a unit about Holidays Around the World.  On Friday, we talked about The Netherlands and the kids left their wooden shoes on their desks...

A Little Bit of Everything

There are a lot of things to share from these past few weeks.  Where does the time go?

Let's start with our Halloween party...

We played bingo...

We made spider orbs...

Here we are...

On to the academics...we just finished working on our first four standards for place value.  We will be taking this next week, during math time, to complete our benchmark math assessment.  This assessment will include addition and subtraction up to 20 and place value.

This was our math warm-up each day.

We reviewed odd and even numbers by doing a t-map in our math notebooks.

To practice place value (and have a little fun with candy corn) we played a game called Scoop and Sort.  Working in groups, students scooped out a cup full of candy corn and then put it into groups of tens with the leftovers in ones.

We studied and completed a research project about bats.

In preparation for Election Day, we talked about what a president does, then compared and contrasted President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.

double bubble map...

One of our Journeys stories was called Super Storms.  We talked about the main idea and details of the story and turned it into a summary paragraph.

(with a fun cover)

Our grammar focus has been on verbs.  We have talked about verbs in the present and this week will be talking about verbs in the past, present, and future.  We practiced finding verbs in our Scholastic News.

Finally, just a quick glimpse at just one of the things we have been doing in the computer lab---Spelling City.  This is a great way to practice spelling words.  The link can be found on our class blog or under Internet Links on the McPolin homepage.  

The Latest Happenings in Mrs. Tullis' Class...

We have been hard at work on place value for math.  We have studied the tens and ones places and what their values mean.  Last week, we started working on hundreds, tens, and ones places.  Our goal is to really understand the values of the numbers.  We are also working on writing the numbers in standard form (538), expanded form (500+30+8), and word form (five hundred thirty eight).  

We have been playing a lot of place value games.

 

 We have also been working on exemplars.  Exemplars are word problems that can be used to instruct and explore problem solving skills; help students communicate mathematically; and self-assess their mathematical skills.

In language arts, we have spent the past couple of weeks learning about singular and plural nouns.  We learned that to make some nouns plural, we add an -s or -es.  There are words, however, that we need to change the spelling of a word to make it plural.

We read a story called Animals Building Homes.  We talked about the names of different animals homes and practiced writing complete sentences about animals and their homes.

 

(I apologize for the blurry photos.)  We then used a web-based program called Wixie to do our final drafts.

To practice our "writing to inform: true story" objective, we learned about Christopher Columbus and wrote a paragraph about him.  We included a topic sentence, details, and a concluding sentence.

Stay tuned for an email regarding our Halloween party on Wednesday, October 31st.