Here's what we've been working on in the classroom lately :
Reading : Last week, 1-Bu learned all about how I tricked my fifth grade teacher into thinking that I was a great reader! You see, I was really good at doing 'fake reading,' as we call it in 1-Bu, in that it sounded really good, but I had no idea what I was actually reading. Last week we deciphered the difference between 'real reading' and 'fake reading.' In 1-Bu, we say that real reading is a mixture of the text and your thinking about the text. Therefore, in order to do 'real reading,' you have to comprehend what you read. For the rest of the school year, we are going to dive into ways that will help the students comprehend various texts, and we laid the foundation for that last week.
Writing : Before break, the students had so much fun finishing up their How to Make a Gingerbread House books and sharing them with you. Thank you to those of you who were able to come and make gingerbread houses with us.
After break, the students began working on creating more how to pieces, but this time on topics of their choices.
Math : We've been talking a lot about strategies to help us add and subtract. We specifically talked about strategies that help people add three numbers efficiently and successfully. We also went over a shortcut to add and subtract multiples of ten on a number grid.
Science : We started our next science unit last week, which is all about living things. We discussed the main parts of a plant (the roots, the stem, and the leaves) and how each of those parts helps the plant survive.
Social Studies : We have moved on to our next social studies unit, which is all about geography. So far, we've talked about what maps are and how they represent various places.
Sorry, no pictures from last week!