We have many very talented parents in room 19, and one of them, Claire Feldman, is an expert in Open Court Reading. She works for the district as a Literacy Coach out in the San Fernando Valley. At our Back-to-School evening, she volunteered to do a unit opener for me. I immediately suggested the Dreams to Jobs unit because I've always found that one a little hard for the students to make a connection with the materials. Or maybe it's just that I am so accustomed to working in the public sector that I have trouble understanding the idea of business and profits and the like.
Anyhow, Ms. Feldman taught our Open Court this morning, and the students had a grand time. I learned a lot, too. She helped the students to review what they already knew about business and economics - more than you might have expected - and to develop some good questions. These were distilled into the Concept/Question board, and Ms. Feldman provided cleverly color-coded papers for students to use as they go through the unit. In addition, Ms. Feldman came brought in jars of baby food and split the students into groups. Each group will come up with an advertisement which we will film a little later in the unit when we come to the "Birth of a Baby Food" story. It was a real pleasure to have such an excellent introduction to this theme, and all of us in room 19 are now excited to start thinking about jobs. (Well, right now, I suppose an awful lot of people in the banking industry are also thinking about jobs, but that's another, sadder, story.)
The rest of the day was pretty normal. We corrected yesterday's math test and the results are on the gradebook. Please remember to check that regularly. We did our silent reading and journaling. We read and discussed a chapter in Island of the Blue Dolphins. We read and discussed a lesson in the old Harcourt Science book. We checked, corrected, and collected a bunch of homework.
Homework: (1) Do the Review questions, page A 71 in the green Science book. Be sure to copy the questions. (2) Do "California Connections" in the Math book, pages 136-137. This is going to count as a History rather than a math grade. (3) Do the Regrouping worksheet. I am not sure why the computer made the top number always 9000. Please show all work. (4) Do "Facts Through Ten," Math, pages 144 -147.
1 comment:
Ok, now I understand the baby food issue raised today - could not for the life of me understand why the class would be making baby food! good thing we have the blog to tell us what our kids are doing in class. Sounds like a great project! Lynn
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