Busy Day!

First of all, let me thank all the families who helped contribute to our food drive. What a great response! I know we collected more than any other single class.

It was a busy Monday. I felt like we were rushing from one thing to the next trying to get time to fit everything in. We did, more or less, and learned a lot in the process.

We started by finishing off the LAUSD quarterly math assessment. The less said about this, the better. We quickly corrected Friday’s math homework. We much more time discussing the vocabulary for our next selection. We tried to figure out it there were synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and homographs for each word. It was a good discussion but hard work! We also went over the concept-question board which I assembled this weekend. Note the great art work the students did of jobs which require uniforms or other special clothing.

We read the story “Elias Sifuentes, Restaurateur” from the Open Court anthology. We worked on questioning and connecting strategies as we read this short non-fiction selection.

After lunch, we started learning the title song for You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown. The play will be a daily kind of activity for the next few months. We talked more about the missions and read a chapter from the book. This is to get the students ready for Wednesday’s field trip (see below). We went out to PE where Mrs. Caruso and I divided the class into groups and did activities with them from the EPEC (Exemplary Physical Education Curriculum) program that we are piloting at Third Street. I had the students work on leaping. This was my grumpiest moment of the day because I had trouble getting them to realize just how much they needed to relearn a movement they thought they knew. Leaping and jumping are not the same thing. We’ll continue with this…. After PE, as usual, we did math. 

Student are taking home a permission slip today for Wednesday’ strip to Mission San Fernando Rey. They should also bring one dollar in for admission along with the permission slip.

Sorry for the short notice, but we only received final confirmation from the Transportation Branch this morning. If you are interested in accompanying the class, please send me an email.

Homework:  (1) Finish the “Reading Strategies” worksheet. (2) Do the “Point of View” worksheet. (3) Do the “Life in the Missions” study sheet. (4) Do the “Time Line” and “Portola” worksheets. (5) Do “Simplifying Expressions,” Envision Math, pages 124-125.