Writing- Today we did our 3rd lab report.  We soaked an egg in vinegar for 2 hours to see what would the happen.  We wrote our results on Twitter together as a class, as well as recorded them in our notebooks. Next week we will continue to do lab reports, and then we will head into writing informational books about a topic we know a lot about.  You can help with this!  Brainstorm some things over break that you know a lot about... dogs, basketball, dance, etc.  They will have to include 5 chapters for their books as well as all of the nonfiction features we have been discussing in shared reading.  This project will not include research, but the next writing projects will!

Reading- So far we have discussed photographs, captions, and table of contents.  Next week we will learn about headings, bold print words, and  the glossary.

Math- Today we learned about plane shapes that we can use to make other plane shapes.  Example: 2 triangles can make a square.  We used our pattern blocks today to fill in shapes. We were supposed to use our Osmos today but our app was having difficulties:O(  Next week it will be up and running again so groups will get to use the tangrams for that.

I had many parents ask why the homework section was not filled out last Friday.  There was a sub that day, so I didn't want the sub to have to figure out what is deserving of a / and -.

There was not a Friday folder this week due to the short week.  There were several scholastic book forms that went home, though.  There was also a coupon from Scholastic.  If you buy $10 worth of books, you can get a free book up to a $5 value.

Also if you have any classroom pictures that you don't mind sending my way or emailing to me, I would really appreciate it.  As part of a classroom community building activity, we are going to make a classroom scrapbook.  I have taken lots of pictures, but the more the better!

HAVE A GREAT THANKSGIVING BREAK!!!!!!
I am very thankful for my entire class of awesome learners :O)

Math- Today we learned about 3D shapes/solid figures.  We took a look at the faces of 3D shapes and learned about the plane shapes that each flat surface would make! Tomorrow we will be learning about faces, edges, and vertices!

Science- We are continuing to learn about our organs. Our first organ we are learning about is the brain!

Writing- We finished our first lab report using the scientific method!  Tomorrow we will begin lab report 2: What happens when you place a solid (mentos) into a liquid (soda)?

Today we had our pjs and movie day!  It was a lot of fun.

This week....
Shared Reading- We are talking about nonfiction features.  Today we learned about photographs.  We read part of a book called Animal Look Alikes.  We realized just how important photographs are to helping us learn new information.  Tomorrow we are going to learn about captions.

Writing- We started nonfiction writing this week.  We are beginning this unit with several science experiments involving matter.  We know that matter is all around us.  It can be in the form of a solid, liquid, or gas.  Our first experiment had two parts.  We mixed a liquid (water) with a solid (baking soda).  We also mixed another liquid (vinegar) with a solid (baking soda).  We are using the scientific method to write out our lab reports.  So far we have written out our question, hypothesis, materials, and procedures.  Tomorrow we will record our results and come up with a conclusion.  We are trying to figure out if we saw chemical changes or physical changes.

Math- We took a Geometry pre-test!  Tomorrow we will begin learning about 3-D shapes.

We have been talking a lot about reading strategies this week. When we come to a tricky word, we can use...
Chunky Monkey - look for parts that we know
              examples:
              flower (fl is a blend   ow is a chunk   er is a chunk)
              thermometer (th is a digraph   er is a chunk  mom is a no excuse word  et is a chunk   er is a chunk)
We have been going over "funky chunky" every other day to know our chunks.  See if your child can recite any of their "funky chunky" to you.  On days that we do not go over funky chunky, we go over the blends and digraphs chart.  Although many of us know our blends and digraphs, we do not always use them in our writing. We are trying to become more aware of that!

Skippy frog - read the sentence and skip over the tricky word.  Read to the period and then GO BACK.  Plug in what makes sense AND looks right.
             example: If we didn't know the word barn in the following sentence, we could use the other words                as clues and think about what would make sense.  The barn had cows and sheep.  We may think of              the words farm and barn, but only barn would make sense AND look right.

Flippy dolphin - Flip the vowel sound.  We know the vowels a,e,i,o,and u have 2 sounds: short and long.  If we try one sound and it doesn't sound right, we could try the other vowel sound.  (example: dino or acorn)

This week we started counting money for math.  If you have any real life experiences with shopping with cash (I know in this day and age many people don't use actual cash anymore) please have your child help you count all the coins and figure out the change!

We also worked on our writing assessments.  I am so excited to get scores on all of these and share them at conferences!  Next week we will be talking about what America means to us in preparation for a Veterans Day Assembly coming up soon. Try to help your child come up with ideas that he or she can write about.  We will be reading some books and watching some videos about our country next week to help us come up with some ideas.  A lucky writer will be reading their paper in front of the whole school!

Writing: This week in writing we continued to look at our leads in our personal narratives.  We learned how to come up with a question lead that "hooks our readers."  We also looked at several examples of a 1,2,3, and 4 writing sample.  Next week we will take out writing assessment, and we are aiming for a 3 (proficient). This means we have a good lead, lots of details, transition words, lots of sentences that make our readers have a movie in their head, correct spelling, and punctuation.

Reading: Reading groups have been going well!  We have all been working on fiction stories.  Many groups are working on inferring and predictions, as well as answering specific questions about their reading.  We have also been working on reading strategies.  This week we focused on "chunky monkey."  This means we find parts (chunks) of a word that we know.  We can also use this strategy to help with spelling!  Ask your child if they can remember any of the "funky chunky" word parts we have been working on.

Math: We finished up our unit this week on place value and we took our test today.  Any time we take a unit test and your child scores below an 80%, there will be a packet of review work that comes home to complete at their (your) leisure.  That does not mean that we will not continue to work on these skills at school, but it is just some extra practice to do at home.  This packet will come home on Monday.  Our next unit is on counting money.  Please practice this skill at home!

We also finished up our unit on Geography.  Next week we will be starting our health unit on organs!

Other news:

*ST math code was sent today

*Scholastic book orders were sent today through email!

*Next week someone in our class will be receiving the "citizen of the month" award.  Students vote on who this should be, and it is kept a surprise to that student until the actual assembly.  

*We will also have our Halloween party next week on Friday at 2pm!

Today we learned how to use our Osmos!!  We used a spelling one for the Daily 5, and a tangram and numbers one for math groups.  It was a lot of fun!