1.31.12

Hola amigos!  Happy Tuesday to you!  We have had a busy day filled with learning up in the room 105.

READING:
We are continuing our study upon informational text structures with emphasis on the Cause & Effect structure.  Students are learning to identify what happened and why something happened using evidence and happenings in texts.  In groups, students are completing an endangered animal project to discover the causes of their endangerment and the effects of these causes.  Students are also writing a "If you Give..." books, just like the If you Give a Mouse a Cookie, or If you Give a Moose a Muffin, or If you Give a Pig a Pancake, or If you Give a Cat a Cupcake books by Laura Numeroff.  While they are basic level books, they are great in showing cause and effect and the students are having an absolute blast constructing ones of their own!!!  I am making one entitled, If you Give Ms. Schrader a New Kitten.
HOMEWORK: complete the front AND back of the Vocabulary page sent home containing Exercises 2, 3, and 4. 
ALSO, complete the Cause and Effect reading passages and questions (the front and back stapled pages) entitled "The Greatest Gift" and "The Giant Wave".  BOTH sides of these pages are to be completed. 

MATH:
We are working on creating and comparing and ordering fractions.  First, the students were given a 'fun-size' bag of skittles and instructed to create fractions of each color and then order the colors by fractions from least to greatest.  Next, students were given math manipulatives entitled, "Fraction Burgers" where you can build "burgers" out of fractions designed to look like burger toppings.  They were given a coinciding sheet and were instructed to label fractions. 
HOMEWORK: Fractions Number Line worksheet

SCIENCE:
Students worked on convection, conduction, and radiation which various ways to transfer heat.  They cut up different pieces of paper and worked on classifying it into the three ways of transferring heat listed above.
HOMEWORK: none

WRITING:
Students were given 5 prompts to choose from and begin drafting and creating a piece of writing centered around those topics. 
HOMEWORK: none

Have a terrific Tuesday night!
xoxo,
Mrs. Thomas