3.3.11

well, we came in to quite an 

Icky, ICKY

 sight today....

yes, I went there.  We had to look at it all day and suffer through it's nastiness...so to get the full effect of our experience, you MOST definitely NEED a picture, because I do not feel that an explanation could adequately do this absolute FOUL sight justice!  Enjoy, friends :)  tee-hee

yes...out sink has officially bit the dust...ahhh!!!  Quite disgusting, yes, so a maintenance order has been requested and we should have it fixed, but in the meantime, we will most definitely have to make other arrangements for washing our hands while in the classroom and other usages we require from the sink :( 

Herb says, "hand sanitizer is needed, please!"

While we are on that note, we are also ALLLLLL out of hand sanitizer...which is a good thing...meaning, we have used EVERY LAST BIT of what you sent in at the beginning of the year with supplies!  However, we now need it MORE than ever because we have lost our "in- house" way to properly sanitize our hands.  Therefore, as I requested with our needs of markers (which has been filled by Jen and Alonna Potts....BIG THANKS!!!), WHEN and IF you are out and about this week or weekend, and IF you are able to, or are feeling generous, we would be SOOOOO very grateful to you for your purchase/ donation of bottles of hand sanitizer!  Thank you, parents, for being so gracious and amazing about any and everything we do or need.  We are so lucky!

Now, onto our day...

READING:

Here's our silly little "Tabi-Cat"!

we began class by reading the MANY books that students have brought in for me to read aloud.  While I thoroughly enjoy reading aloud and strongly encourage you to bring in books that you love to share with us, I can NO longer read more than ONE a day, for it uses up far too much of our very valuable reading class time to read any more than one.  Keep bringing them in, but please know it could be a while before I get to it if others have done so as well! 
After reading two books, brought in by folks (and we loved them both), I decided that Tabitha should read hers.  Upon beginning it myself, it was clear that it was written by an English author, so being that Tabitha's homeland is England, I had her read the book aloud in her natural dialect to do it the fair justice it deserves...it was sooooo great!  I only caught a portion of the read aloud, but you can get a taste of how it went, she was so cute and we all really, really enjoyed it (I think the students really liked having someone other than me read aloud too).

...our activities in class...

we got into our reading groups and went through our rotation schedule for Thursday.  Since it is Thursday, groups did not do their Literature Circle roles, but did projects/ activities with their group's chapter book, focusing on our skill/ concept of focus for this week (drawing conclusions).  Groups had three different activites to choose from to complete: 1) creating and writing in a diary from the main character's standpoint about his/her views during specific major events in the book; 2) creating character cards illustracting and depicting the character's specific emotions during events of a story based on information read to support it; or 3) pretend you are a new reporter interviewing the main character from your book: write interview questions you'd ask him/her to in-depth into his/her personal accounts of the events of his/her life, AND then answer those questions as if you are the main character, drawing conclusions to infer how he/she must have been feeling.

Groups also had options in word work: 1) play charades with your group using spelling words, 2) play hangman with your group using spelling words, or 3) work on spelling packet and then vocabulary/ grammar sheet coinciding with this week's Treasures story, "Seven Spools of Thread".

Finally, for Independent Practice, students were to complete the brochures they began yesterday that has them responding to reading through writing about "Seven Spools of Thread", and then, moved onto a more challenging story entitled, "The Last Brocade", and complete the coinciding brochure on it. 
HOMEWORK: complete SPELLING PACKET to turn in tomorrow and STUDY words for our test tomorrow as well!

MATH:
we began by working on some "mental division", meaning, division we can do in our minds.  Division that falls into this category is division that we already know, yet don't realize it.  This division we can find by simply working backwards from our basic multiplication facts (Example, since we know 7 x 5 = 35, then we can use that fact to divide mentally.  So, since 7 x 5 = 35, then 35 / 7 = 5, and 35 / 5 = 7).  **(/ means division on the computer!)**
Upon working on two pages of division involving basic multiplication, it was incredibly obvious that our knowledge of our multiplication facts is still very small.  Therefore, I am quite concerned that we are NOT practicing these facts as we should be...which makes me more than nervous about our state testing coming up in only 25 school days. Multiplication is a fundamental skill for so many things in mathematics and it will be incredibly difficult to move on to more challenging concepts that we must take on without knowing these facts.  Therefore, for...
HOMEWORK: students are to complete ALL fact families for 2s and 3s (facts up to 12).  Each set should take one blank white sheet of paper.

PM activities:
since it is such a beautiful day (again...haven't we been lucky?!?) we got to go outside for a nice "walk for exercise" and then came in to finish our group Science ORQs we began last week, but have neglected until today due to other obligations or necessary discussion about respect (see posts from Tues. and Wed.).
HOMEWORK: none!  BUT...maybe you could visit a few websites I've posted before about rocks?!?

I hope your Thursday evening finds you well and wonderful and remember, TOMMORROW IS FRIDAY!!!  YAY!!!
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas