Hands On!

Today was another really smooth day in room 19. I can tell it's going to be a great year. We started by correcting and collecting most of the homework. I was very impressed by how many students had done all their work and how well it was done, too. We moved on to considering the theme of "Risks and Consequences" again, and the students also wrote ideas and questions about this theme for the Concept-Question Board. We read the first story in the Open Court Reader after that. It's called "Mrs. Frisby and the Crow", an excerpt from Robert O'Brian's novel Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. We worked on the reading strategy of predicting as we read the story today and the students recorded their predictions as they read on post-it notes which they stuck on the page as they read along.

We did our first Science investigation today. The students planted five different kinds of seeds in terrariums. It was a pleasant day outside, so I took advantage of our patio to keep the dirt out of the classroom. The students had a great time!

Doing this kind of Science is a lot harder than just giving them pages to read in a book, but they learn so much more this way that it's worth it!

After lunch, we corrected our math homework and went out for PE. Once we get our routine down we will only do PE 3 times a week, but right now we are learning the basics of squad order, warm-up exercises, and color rotations. After PE, we did math as we generally will do last thing in the day. Our topic today was reading and writing numbers in the millions place.


Homework:  (1) Write spelling sentences for the 20 spelling words. (2) Do the cursive letter formation review page. (3) Do the "Terrestrial Environments" study sheet. Note that the page number where the students can find the answer is written after each question. Do NOT do page 4. (4) Do "Millions," envision Math pages 8-9 and the enrichment sheet on the back.