Friday, June 09, 2006

Final Units

Definitely a better day than yesterday!

We started out today by going over our homework and having the spelling test. Students are having problems with multi-digit multiplication; spelling was generally good. Both scores should be on the Gradebook now. Big thanks to Mr. Benitez for helping here since I had been asked to go off to a Friends of Third board meeting to discuss our arts education plan. We then started a short unit we’ll be doing on various native groups — beyond those in our area — and their art. This will help prepare the students for our trip to the Southwest Museum a week from Tuesday. We read a couple chapters in the old social studies text. We did some comprehension questions on one chapter and did a Kwakiutl mask project on the other. We also played some good softball today.

Things are winding up. Remember we have two field trips in the last week — the one to the Southwest Museum and the other our walking trip for the picnic in Pan-Pacific park. I already have signed permission forms for these on file.

Homework:  Do the division review study sheet. Be sure to include the check step.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Quiet Day

We had a pretty quiet day today. But it was pretty productive for the children -- and for me, too, since I spent much of the time sorting things out in readiness for teaching fourth grade next year. After checking the homework -- a little disappointing to see how many are still have problems with regrouping -- we went on to rereading the "Fox in the Moon" story and completing the thinking maps. Most children worked with a partner here. After that, they worked on the study questions for the Aesop fable, "The Country Mouse and the City Mouse." This is our final Open Court story of the year.

We played softball again after recess, and they're finally starting to do some decent teamwork in the outfield. That's as much a social skill as it is an athletic one! I read them some more of The Wind in the Willows after PE while we waited for our lunchtime.

After lunch, we reviewed the various solid geometric figures and how they can be combined in drawings of houses and other buildings. Students then went on to do some pictures of farmhouses connecting this math topic to our OCR unit. We'll have some of them on the blog tomorrow (if I remember to bring fresh camera batteries from home....)

Homework: (1) Study spelling. (2) Do the math worksheet -- side 1 deals with comparing numbers and the other with addition and subtraction. We'll really stress this in the last few days because this is a skill which should be second nature to them by now.

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Back in the Groove

I’m sorry that I’ve been a little flaky getting these things posted regularly. I really have to do some things before I go home or else I get so busy I don’t remember them until it’s too late to do any good….

A nice day! We worked on our “To the Moon” unit in Into English!, particularly reading the retelling the Peruvian folktale. We started work on some flow maps here — we’ll finish these tomorrow. We did the blending and vocabulary for our last story, “The Country Mouse and the City Mouse.” We read through and briefly discussed this. We’ll talk about it more tomorrow in greater detail.

After recess, we continued our softball tournament. Students and starting to get pretty good. We also finished correcting the Open Court unit 5 test, our last for the year! Hurray!

After lunch we did the Open Court fluency assessment, again our last of the year. We also did some work with the Hands-on Equation program. Some students really understood what we were doing, while others were clueless. That’s OK:  it’s really enrichment at this point.

Homework tonight focuses on getting a jump start on fourth grade map. Here we take place value from the 10,000’s place to the 1,000,000’s place.

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Do the Expanded Form worksheet. Be sure to write the answer in word form on the back, too. (3) Do the Addition and Subtractions worksheet.