3.7.11



photoshoot with the birthday girl!



Hello all and HAPPY MONDAY to YOU!!!  Guess what?!?  In one month at this time, we will be on Spring Break!!!  Yes, SB is less than ONE MONTH AWAY!!!  Wahoooo!!!

Today is Miss Maddy's birthday!  Happy 9th Birthday to youuuuu...Miss Maddy Sue!! (not her real middle name...one I've attach, per usual).

ta-da! it's my 9th birthday!

WE LOVE OUR MISS MADDY GIRL!



Can't you just see the wheels of their brains turning?!?



READING:

I passed back our spelling tests from last week and administered this week's packet which is lesson 6. 

Our WOW! words this week (3.7.11 - 3.11.11) are:

facetious

incognito

engineering

flabbergasted

phenomenon

Since half of our class was gone to QUEST, we briefly introduced and touched on our concept/ skill of focus this week: identifying the Author's Purpose (P.I.E.: to Persuade, to Inform, or to Entertain).  

Students HARD at work!

Next, we a took test to assess our skill of 'drawing conclusions' from last week.  We really worked on making sure our ORQs were above and beyond a score 4's requirements and expectations.

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ORQ modeling/ coaching!

HOMEWORK: complete ONE activity of YOUR CHOICE from your "Spelling Activity Bank" (either from "Spelling Tic-Tac-Toe, OR from "THINK-TAC-TOE).  I will be checking these TOMORROW. 

MATH: 

we did an activity to illustrate how division is dividing a number into as many equal groups as possible.  Therefore, each student was given 12 purple squares to represent groups, and at least 72 jellybeans to divide into those groups. We started by trying to divide 72 by 5.  We counted out 5 purple squares and took 5 jellybeans at a time and distributed them evenly into each group until we could no longer evenly give them out.  As we were distributing them to the purple groups, we were also recording our division on paper as repeated subtraction.  We were able to subtract 5 from 72, 14 times, with 2 leftover.  This 2 leftover is called our remainder.  Unfortunately, we were unable to complete this activity or get to a level of full understanding of the concept at hand, so we will be continuing it tomorrow.

HOMEWORK: I passed out 11 yellow triangles.  These are for writing out our fact families.  Tonight, students are to complete fact families for 4s and do facts 2 - 12 (4 x 2; 4 x 3; 4 x 4; 4 x 5; 4 x 6; 4 x 7; 4 x 8; 4 x 9; 4 x 10; 4 x 11; & 4 x 12), putting the 3 numbers in the fact family on the front with the four coinciding facts listed on the back.  **SEE EXAMPLE OF THESE BELOW**

this is an example of how the fact family triangles should look.
The marker side represents the front while the side done in pen/ pencil represents how the back should look.

PM activities:
we worked on one of our on-demand writing prompts for March.  The students were writing a letter to our cafeteria manager in response to a prompt that had them persuading her to think of other varieties for our lunch menu because they are "tired of the same old thing" (as the prompt stated).  Since it is March, the students are now required to basically do these prompts on their own.  I will be conferencing with them about these and then coaching them to 4-score expectations before they do one completely independently by the end of the month.
I hope you have a marvelous Monday evening!  See you tomorrow!
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas

P.S., the SCHOLASTIC Book Fair is going on THIS WEEK!!!  So, don't forget to bring your money and come just a little bit early for some time to spend before the bell rings in the morning because chances are, we probably will not have time during the day to visit as a class.
Based on interest in books and requests from students, I filled a "teacher book bag" so you can see books that we wish to have in our classroom!  Again, if you are able and/or are feeling generous, we'd love your contribution to our classroom library!