This week in writing we began writing persuasive essays. We learned the basics of writing a paragraph, comparing it to a sandwich or hamburger with various "fillings":
top of bun (topic sentence)
meat (Sentence 1 - supporting fact)
tomato (Sentence 2 - supporting fact)
lettuce (Sentence 3 - supporting fact)
bottom of bun (closing sentence)
Together, we took the position that "Winter is the very best season." We wrote the following persuasive paragraph as a class:
Winter is the very best season. You can do many fun activities in the snow. Snowball fights are so much fun! In the winter there are no mosquitos or bees to worry about. Hot chocolate is a cozy way to get warm in the winter. These are some of the reasons I love winter.
We then discussed how we could take the very opposite position, that winter is the very worst season, with some of the negatives about the season. We talked about the difference between opinion and fact, and that persuasive essays are usually based in a person's opinion.
After a few days of practicing writing their own persuasive essays, several children sat in the author's chair to share their own paragraphs. Some of the topics included:
Cats and bunnies are the best pets to have.
The best toys are Legos.
Mosquitoes are the very worst bugs.
Summer is the very best season.
Australia is the very best place to live.
Dogs are the very best pets.
Author's Chair:
This week in Math we have been working more with arrays. We learned a game called "Array Bingo" where children roll dice and match the number of dots in each array. Practice with arrays is a very helpful beginning step in learning multiplication facts. Seeing 2 rows of 6 dots each, and 12 total dots, helps children to make the connection that 2 x 6 = 12. Also learning that a different array, 3 x 4 = 12, shows that a different arrangement (fact family) has the same total (product).
This week in Science we visited our Dogwood tree to record our winter observations:
Class read-alouds:
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