It was great seeing so many of you on Saturday at the River Edge Fun Run and 5k. The students really impressed me with their running skills! Thank you to those of you who stayed around and cheered me on during the 5k. It was so nice to hear my name being cheered.
Here's what we were working on in the classroom last week:
Reading : We've been working on very deep comprehension strategies recently and the students are beginning to realize that there's a lot more to texts than they originally thought. Recently, we've been talking about creating inferences while we read. We know that sometimes the author doesn't tell us information directly, but that we have to figure it out (sort of like we're reading detectives).
In the classroom, we've been practicing our inferencing skills using poetry. Poets often use very strong words and metaphors, which allow the students to form great visualizations in their minds to infer authors' meanings.
Writing : The students are knee-deep in the creations of their non-fiction all about books. They've worked very hard to include all the facts they know about their topics in organized manners. They've also been creating their own non-fictions conventions, which they learned about in our non-fiction reading unit, to share this information. Once we're done with these books, we're going to have a non-fiction publishing party with 1-Bu families invited, so keep your ears open!
Math : Last week, we spent a lot of time reviewing and assessing all the students learned about geometry.
Word Study : Diphthongs were the focuses of our word studies lessons last week. We learned all about oi/oy, ow/ou, and aw/au. I don't expect for the students to have developed mastery of these spelling patterns yet, however, as they are quite tricky.
Odds and Ends : The book fair is this week. 1-Bu will be browsing the book fair on Monday morning, and then going back to make purchases on Thursday morning. On Monday, your child will come home with a 'wish list' that he/she has created from his/her time browsing the book fair. Please review your child's wish list and make sure that he/she has money for the items that you would like him/her to purchase on Thursday morning (if any at all).
Here are some pictures of 1-Bu this week: