Language Arts
We completed our Amistad unit with a big exam. This exam covered reading comprehension questions in both multiple choice and short answer. It included vocabulary and grammar that we have studied, and a short writing piece. The main purposes of this exam were to 1) provide an assessment for the end of the unit and 2) provide students with comprehensive testing taking experience. We spread this test out over 2 days, went through each section afterwards to discuss different test taking strategies, and discussed strategies for showing what you know in the future. Overall, they did a pretty good job and I was impressed with their work and their positive attitudes.
Friday was a special day of Halloween / end of a big unit celebrations. We had a fun afternoon of stations. The language arts stations included a cursive hand-writing skeleton and many descriptive paragraphs in which the students needed to figure out which Halloween character was being described and then draw their picture. Fun! Students were then challenged to create their own mystery writing about themselves.
Math
The students did a fabulous job with the subtraction unit. Borrowing across the zeros was no problem for these kiddos. Did they show you how one strategy is to subtract one from the top and bottom numbers? 9,000-6321 would change to 8,999-6,320. The answer is the same but there’s no need to borrow! Just one of the tools we can keep in our ‘pocket’ for later use.
We completed our subtraction unit and had a fun Multiplication Monster activity on Friday as an introduction to our next unit. (These can be seen on our classroom door.) Multiplication is now open on Quicktables. I would also like for the students to continue working towards mastery on their addition and subtraction quicktables.
Social Studies
We finished decorating our Roman writing tablets this week and then the students had a great time practicing writing Roman numerals to 20 in them. We went over our Punic War quiz in class. Over all the class did well filling in the blanks but many had a difficult time putting the events in the correct order. We reviewed the sequence of events during the Wars and everyone has a better understanding now. On Thursday we had a Roman dinner party Patrician style. Togas and tunics were the requested attire for this event. We enjoyed some traditional Roman food: bread, dates, grapes, olives, cheese, and almonds. We discussed Roman customs and did some Readers Theater with a couple of short Roman plays. We had fun pretending to be in Rome and doing as the Romans do.
Science
We have spent most of the week working hard on writing our animal paragraphs. The students first filled in a planning worksheet for what they wanted to write about, making sure to include a good topic and concluding sentence. They then reviewed a checklist to make sure that all key points from our animal classification domain were mentioned in their paragraph. Next they revised their work and wrote out their paragraph. Finally they edited their work, using a editing checklist and having a classmate read it over to make sure it flowed well and made sense. A few students began publishing their work and drawing an illustration on Friday. The rest of the class will finish on Monday.
We had some special “spooky” science fun on Friday to help us get in the spirit of Halloween. The class got to rotate to different stations and do some eerie activities. We made Flubber, we magically expanded a jack -o-lantern balloon, and like mad scientist we tried to dissolve candy pumpkins in a variety of creepy solutions (milk, oil, water, and vinegar :} We ended the day with a fun Halloween story before our Halloween parade.
English Spelling/Writing
Everyone did very well on their spelling test this week. A couple of the kiddos got a 100% for the first time this week! Great job everyone. Because we have been so much writing during science this week, we didn’t have any new journal entries. Students who finished early could do free choice in their journals. This week in grammar review we have focused on action verbs and linking verbs.
Art
The 2nd/3rd Grade class learned how to use basic shapes to draw an eagle sitting on a branch. They folded their paper into 16 rectangles to create a grid, and then used these lines to draw the body, head and tail of a bald eagle. We also looked at a print of Andy Warhol’s “Bald Eagle.” The students did a great job drawing and using oil pastel for color.
Music
We reviewed the French Canadian song Alouette and learned a Chilean fold song about a turkey, Pavo, Pavo, both of which have a weird fixation on plucking birds’ feathers. We then played our new instruments in rhythm with both songs, and went around the class several times echoing rhythmic passages on all the various percussion instruments.