Language Arts
This week in language arts we continued our section on writing a summary. The kiddos began writing their rough drafts of a summary about the Firefighter story they read last week.
In phonics we worked on the diphthong -oy and -oi as in the words hoy/today and oigo/I hear.
In grammar we discussed action verbs/verbos. We reviewed how verbs are words that show some type of action. To practice our verbs we went outside to the enjoy the beautiful sunshine and ran a verb relay race. The kids took turns running between two given points acting out a verb that they chose. Some ran back and forth doing things like combing their hair/peinando el pelo or flying like an airplane/volando como un avión. It was a blast!
Math
In math we worked on word problems/problemas cotidianas. The students practiced reading the word problems and then underlining the important information/información importante. They then practiced drawing out bar models that represented the important info so that they could better visualize what was going on in the problem. They also used number bonds/números conectados to represent the different parts of the math problem. These tools will become increasingly more useful as they continue to work through word problems that are more complex.
Have a safe and happy spring break!
History & Geography
This week we read the story of Betsy Ross and her meeting with George Washington to discuss making a new flag. The class was particularly interested in this legend of how the Stars and Stripes came about. On Tuesday we all became seamstresses in class and started working on our version of the original 13 colony flag. The class continue to work on sewing their Flags through out the week when they had free time. On Thursday we did a reader’s theater retelling of the Betsy Ross story. We also reviewed what we’ve learned in the Birth of Our Nation unit so far. we practiced our 13 Colony chant, identified key contributors to the Declaration of Independence, and added where Jamestown, Roanoke Island, and Plymouth Rock were located on our map of the 13 colonies. The everyone was quite concerned when I said we were at pausing point. They were disappointed and thought this meant the end of the unit. I assured them we were only partially done. The students are fascinated with this history.
Science
We wrapped up our unit on astronomy this week by taking a closer look at the solar system and each planet. On Monday we went more in depth into characteristics of the four inner planets and on Tuesday the outer ones. The class made their own individual planet books and learned a new song about the planets. Thursday was our review day, we played some games and read a trade book to help us refresh our minds about everything we have learned. On Friday the class took their unit assessment and did very well! Afterwards we celebrated the end of the unit by having some “Space” time. We watched a Magic School Bus episode called “Lost in Space”, ate some astronaut food ( dehydrated ice cream, dehydrated strawberries, and squeezable apple sauce), and by using inches and feet, we measured and marked the distance between planets in the hall to get a better visualization of how far apart each planet is from the Sun. Some students brought in extra credit projects about space and shared them with the class. It was a fun way to end our last day before spring break, I think the class is going miss this unit.
English Spelling
The class had fun with their sorts this week. They got to practice their words with a friend and go on word hunt around the classroom, looking for words that fell into the pattern that their sorts were in this week. Everyone did fantastic on the spelling tests!
For journal time, students wrote several entries this week.They wrote information they knew about each planet, they wrote about the Betsy Ross legend, and they also wrote an entry on what they were going to do for spring break .
Music
From the core curriculum, we listened to the original story of “The Sorcer’s Apprentice,” then watched videos of an orchestra playing the Paul Dukas composition, followed by the Disney version with Mickey Mouse.