Getting Down to Business

The first day of school is good, but the second day is better, at least for teachers. By the second day we start to get into a routine and the day moves more quickly. There is now homework to check, chapters to read, paragraphs to revise, and all the other normal stuff of every day classroom life.

We started the day, as we always will, with Independent Work Time. Here we reviewed a little cursive, and did a worksheet on the difference between complete sentences and fragments. Most of the students could easily identify incomplete sentences, even if they were not always sure what key element was missing. Some students finished early and did independent reading.

We then started our study of Thinking Maps. This system of graphic organizers is a core element of the district's ESL program, but it is valuable to all students. Plus, they're sort of fun! We looked at the Circle Map today. Each students did a circle map about himself or herself, and then wrote a paragraph. We will do something similar for all 8 maps, and when we are finished these will be bound together into a book.

We corrected the Reading Pretest. I understand why children hate pretests - they seem unfair even when they know they will not affect the report card grade - but they are helpful to teachers when we have to determine what to stress and what we can almost ignore. Overall, they did quite well compared to previous classes, but I know some children were crushed not to get perfect scores.

After recess, we went over last night's homework. We also read "Where in the World is California?" and discussed some basic geography terms and ideas like continents and hemispheres.

After lunch, we did art. We looked at the five basic types of lines - horizontal, vertical, zigzag, curved, and diagonal. Students then picked a cause and did a poster about this. Some of these were quite good!

Finally, we looked some more at place value. In third grade students studied place value to the thousands place. Today we extended that into the millions. The math homework relates to this skill.

Thank you for the many kind comments I have received about the blog the last couple days. I particularly appreciate it when you post comments so that we can all share parent and student insights. It keeps me posting regularly!

Homework: (1) Do "Introducing the Theme," pages 1 and 2 of the Risks and Consequences packet. (2) Write a story - roughly one page, not skipping lines - about a time you took a risk. This can be a true story or it can be made up. (3) Do "Place Value Through Hundred Thousands," Math, pages 6-7 and "Place Value Through Millions," also in Math, pages 8-11.

Extra Credit: Bring in a photograph of yourself somewhere in California, preferably from a part of the state outside of Los Angeles.