Tuesday, October 1, 2013

The Jungle Journal: September 30th - October 4th

Reader’s Workshop
This week we will continue to explore reading partnerships.  We will be retelling our books to our partners and learning that readers often retell our books as a way to lay the story out for others so we can talk it over. But we also lay it out for ourselves so we can think it over. . We will continue to review our new vocabulary words from our text talk book The Patchwork Quilt. 
Each week we will be choosing a student to be our Reading Test Taking Top Banana. This student is one who has used all their strategies to become a successful test taker. Our Reading Test Taking Top Bananas this week are Jaydn and Gabi! Way to go! We are super proud of your hard work!  

Writers’ Workshop                                                              
We will continue drafting our memoirs this week.  Our focus will be on the organization of our story.  Students will be learning how to add transitional words and phrases into their writing. We will also be working on our conclusions.  Ask your child about Takeaway Endings! We will then move toward noticing our strengths and weaknesses as writers, as we move toward the editing phase.
                                                             Skills                                                                                             
 We will be working on list 4 of spelling this week.  Students should study and complete one of the homework options for list 4.  Our quiz will be Friday. The quiz will also cover our skills topic of the week, action verbs.  Our daily skills sheet (in their ROAR folder) will serve as their study guide. 

Math Workshop    
Students are solving distance riddles in which they find pairs of 2- and 3-digit numbers at given distances from a landmark (such as 100, 200 or 300) and determine the difference between the numbers in each pair.  We are focusing on jumping to landmarks on the number line.  Ask your child the following distance riddle question:  I am 36 more than 200.  What number am I?  I am 36 less than 200.  What number am I?  What is the difference between those two numbers? 
 There will be a Distance Riddle Quiz on Wednesday, October 2nd.  You can review Math workbook Unit 3, pages 49, 50, 51, and 57 to prepare.                                                                  
 

Science                                                                                       
We are learning about matter and some of its' properties.  We have discussed matter is anything that takes up space and has mass.  Properties of matter include size, shape, color, texture, and hardness.  We are also participating in hands-on explorations to learn how matter is measured.  Properties of matter, such as mass, volume, length, and temperature, can be measured 

Social Studies                                                                                 
We are studying Chapter 2, Lesson 3:  Communities and Resources.  Please study the blue sheet to be prepared for the quiz on Friday, October 4th.
 

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Reading Partnerships

This week we explored reading partnerships. Today we interviewed our reading partners and got to know each other as readers. We asked questions like...
"What is your favorite series of books?" and "Why do you like it so much?"
"Where is your favorite spot to read?"
"What are your goals for yourself as a reader?" and "How are you going to meet them?"
"Who has helped you as a reader?" and "What did that person do that was helpful?"
Here are some friends interviewing each other and taking notes about what their reading partner shared.






Friday, September 20, 2013

Multiple Meaning Words/Homographs



This week in Reader's Workshop we continued to learn about Homographs/Multiple Meaning Words
(M & M). We learned that Homographs are words that sound the same and are spelled the same, but have different meanings. Students chose a homograph and wrote a sentence using their word in two different ways. We even noticed some of our spelling words this week were Homographs :). Great Job Class!!



Friday, September 13, 2013

Multiple Meanings

Today, we talked about Multiple Meaning Words.  First, a few brave students volunteered to close their eyes and trust Mrs. Rossignol to put a surprise in the mouth.  Mrs. Rossignol placed M&Ms in each friend's mouth....although each was a different color.  We then discussed, that although each was a different color (like words spelled the same), they were, in fact different (like words with different meanings).  




Multiple Meaning Words are words that have several meanings depending upon how they are used in a sentence. 

Below is Sophia and Gavin's work about the word "stick" and how it has different meanings to different people or situations.