New and Improved

First of all, a big thank you to all the parents who helped out at Culture Day. Our Drum Circle booth did reasonably well, and it was both fun and educational. 

Today we did a number of new things. We started a new unit in Open Court Reading. We started a new independent reading program and the students received a new journal as a part of this. We also started new units in History and Math. We started work on You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown by watching half of the cartoon version. We’ll start on the songs tomorrow.

Best of all, we started the EPEC program. EPEC stands for “Exemplary Physical Education Curriculum” and it is the state-of-the-art PE program that the state and the district would like us to teach. We are the first class at Third Street to attempt to implement this, and we now have the equipment we need thanks to the generosity of our fabulous room 19 families. Our students worked on two activities today. I worked with students to learn and practice proper jumping form.  Ms. Caruso did a cooperation game with the another group. After a period of time, we switched off so that both groups could do both activities.

Homework:  (1) Write each spelling word once. Underline or circle the silent letter. (2) Do the “Reading Strategies” page with the post-it notes. Be sure to write not only the page number but the phrase that prompted the prediction, connection, or question. (3) Do the Multisyllabic Words worksheet. (4) Do the “Explorers Arrive from Mexico” study sheet and the “Early Explorers” and “Routes” worksheet. (5) Do “Variables and Expressions,” Envision Math, pages 118-119 and “Who Wants Pizza” on the back.