Word Work

This week we learned how to complete our spelling sorts, which teach us about general patterns we find in words.  This helps children to remember how to spell and pronounce words, and of course along the way we learn about those sneaky "exceptions" to the rules, which the "Words Their Way" program calls "oddballs".

Porpoise:

Whale:

Dolphin:

Snapshots from Our Week

Here are a few more photos of our typical days, including Morning Circle, Writer's Workshop, and independent Math practice.

Fishing for Ten

This week we learned a new game called "Fishing for Ten".  This reinforces a child's sense of compliments of ten (1 + 9,  2 + 8,  3 + 7,  etc.) 

This is a great one to play at home! (removing Jack/Queen/King)  

Reading Buddies

We have had a great time getting to know our 4th grade reading buddies from Ms. Lee's class over the last two weeks. We will meet every Monday afternoon this year. It is pretty special watching these friendships grow over the course of the school year.

Rocks!

In Science with Mrs. Brennan, the students are beginning their exploration of Rocks. They began with a "Telling Brain Frame" to share what they already know about Rocks.  Next they did some sorting: What is a rock and what isn't?

  

Math, Science & the Great Outdoors

In Math we are continuing to solidify and build on our number sense. Today we played a two fisted cube game, which reinforced compliments of ten. One student hid some cubes in a fist, and showed their partner the remaining cubes in the other hand.  Knowing there were ten cubes total, the student needed to determine how many cubes were hidden in their partner's fist.  Some students challenged themselves by increasing the amount of cubes to twenty.

Children continue to practice number grid skills, and a large part of our math program is teaching the students to explain the "why" and "how" behind their answers:  

In Science with Mrs. Brennan, we continued our work on Life Cycles, learning about the life cycle of a human, a frog, and a tree.  Next week we will begin our Rock study, and return to Life Cycles over time.

The children enjoyed the last official days of summer this week out on the playground. It is lovely to watch them continue to build on their existing friendships, while also creating new ones.  We had a few sessions of NWEA testing this week, so the outdoor time was well deserved.