Last Week in Mrs. Tullis' Class...

We have been busy in room B4! 

Last week, we completed our standard on addition and subtraction up to 20 using mental strategies.  To practice, we played a game called Name That Number.

About once a week, we work on a math task.  Students love to share their work/thinking under the document camera.

Our grammar focus last week was complete sentences.  To practice, we did a sort.

Last week, we also worked on asking and telling sentences.  Students worked in pairs to make a sentence pocket book.

The students completed their descriptive paragraphs about their neighborhoods (using the 5 senses).  Many shared their papers in the author's chair.

We also worked on multiple meaning words. 

We met our 5th grade buddies!!!

This week in math, we started talking about place value.  We will be working on place value for about 2 months.  

Compare and Contrast

Our comprehension skill this past week was compare and contrast.  To show how two things or people are alike and different we used venn diagrams.  Our story this week was called My Family.  After reading the story, we compared our own families to Camila's family from the story.

The next day, we used our interactive whiteboard (and Kidspiration) to compare and contrast an apple and a banana.

Then the students worked in their table groups to compare and contrast 2 objects.

They used venn diagrams to show how the 2 items are alike and different.

We also started social studies.  We will be talking about community for about the next month or so.  We used a venn diagram to compare and contrast fire fighters and policemen.

Our grammar focus last week was complete sentences.  We talked about how sentences must have a subject and a predicate in order to be complete.

This week we will be working on identifying the author's purpose as we read stories.  We will also be finishing up our math standard of adding and subtracting numbers within 20 using mental strategies.  (We will, however, continue to work on this throughout the year.)  

Week in Review

I started introducing centers this week.  Centers are what the students will work on while I work with my small reading groups.

One of the centers is using wikistix (or bendaroos) to spell words from the word wall.

I also introduced some math games that will help students fluently add and subtract within 20.  (That is the math standard we are working on right now.)

One of the games is called Addition Top-It.

Another game is called Beat the Calculator.  

The Living Planet Aquarium came to our school last Thursday.  They brought animals that live in rain forests.  This was a free presentation that introduced the kids to animals' habitats (which we will talk about at a later time).

White's tree frog

hissing cockroach

giant millipede

Halloween moon crab

Our vocabulary strategy for the week was ABC order.  Table groups worked together to put words into ABC order.

We have a school store at McPolin!  Students can use their Moose Moola to purchase items (or coupons) from the store once a month.  This past Friday was their first time at the store.  You don't have to spend the Moose Moola.  Some students chose to save it for next time.

Here is Mrs. Roussos (school counselor) explaining the coupons.