Busy Day!

It was a busy day! Mondays usually are. But it was a great day, too. And Mondays usually are that, as well.

We began a new story in Open Court today called “Urban Roosts.” This is another fairly long nonfiction selection. It explores how different kinds of birds have adapted to life in the city. It’s an interesting but challenging selection. We’ll be having a lot of fun with it this week, exploring the ideas in the selection in art and dance as well as answering questions and other usual activities.

We also have been doing a lot in the past week to connect this theme of City Wildlife to both our Writer’s Workshop and to technology. Mrs. Gassman and Mr. Benitez have been helping me with Reader’s Workshop conferences so that I can work each day with a small group of students on their HyperStudio stacks on City Wildlife. As the children get to know this powerful program better, they will need less support from me. Right now, I’m really pleased at how well they’re doing.

After lunch we had a district-mandated “lockdown drill.” This simulated what students would have to do in the extremely unlikely event of some kind of serious police activity in the neighborhood. The students did very well and stayed very calm – and very polite, too, as some of the adults involved talked endlessly….

Homework:  (1) Study spelling. (2) Complete the Urban Roosts crossword puzzle. We started this one in class. (3) Do “Multiply by 8,” Math, page 153, all problems.