8.29.11

it's the LAST Monday of August...ahhhhhh!!!!  Where did the time go?!?  It is so very, very hard to believe that September is upon us...Thursday, actually!  We have already had quite a busy day getting into the swing of things! 

This week will be the students' first VOCABULARY test which will take place on FRIDAY, September 2nd.  Each night, the students will not only need to know the spelling of these vocabulary words (written in their reading response journals), but will also need to know what they mean and the context in which the words can be used.  It is NEVER too early to begin studying!  This week, they only have 5 words so they can get in the habit of our vocabulary process, but they also have 5 WOW! Words which are bonus words.  They do not need to know the definitions of these, only their spelling and they MUST be attempted on the assessment.  These words CANNOT and WILL NEVER be counted against the student's grade, but can only help in raising the student's grade.  We've had a lot of fun adding words to this list!

This week's VOCABULARY words are:

misunderstanding

troublesome

nervously

revolved

attentively

WOW! Words (BONUS!)

rededication

satisfied

adventurous

comprehension

benevolent

Our activities for the day...
WRITING:
Today, we continued our study of parts of speech, but our topic of focus for this morning was verbs which are action words...or words that you can DO.  We watched the "SchoolHouse Rock: Verbs" video and then created sentences with our success partners, circling action words.
HOMEWORK: none (we finished it in class!)

READING:
We are FINALLY ready to begin rotating with reading groups!  Mondays are our days for whole group instruction where we read our week's story and discuss the concepts at hand.  This week, we are studying THEME which is the overall message apparent throughout a story.  The message of our story, Maria Isabel, is teamwork, friendship, and acceptance of others.  To emphasize acceptance of others and working together to accomplish one main goal, we watched a segment of the movie, Remember the Titans where the football players are warming up and give an awesome chant.  It is so powerful seeing them unified as one whole team, even though they're all different.  It is obvious they are finally accepting of each other and everyone on their team and their individual contributions to the whole.  You can watch this segment by clicking HERE. 
HOMEWORK: study VOCABULARY words (see above for further details)

SCIENCE:
Students learned about the structures of plants and their functions.  The four main structures of a plant are: the roots, the stem, the leaves, and the actual flower itself.
HOMEWORK: none.

MATH:
Students got to make their own place-value video today!  Well, actually, it was creating motions to go with THIS SONG.
HOMEWORK: none

I hope you have a magnificent Monday evening!
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas