Last Thursday, we celebrated Cinco de Mayo. In the morning, we made yarn art that was based on traditional Mexican yarn paintings, while listening to Mexican music. The students had a great time creating their pieces of art, even though it was VERY hard work. They had a lot of respect for Mexican yarn artists that create much more intricate designs. In the afternoon, the class parents came in a put together a fun fiesta to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. They had chips and salsa, fruit, vegetables, and quesadillas. Then, the students made some cute dancing Mexican puppets and had fun with a pinata. Thanks to the class parents for all their hard work! I've put some Cinco de Mayo pictures at the bottom of this post.
Reading : We've been doing a lot of work with visualizing. Last week, we talked about using all of our senses to visualize text. Rather than just imagining what something looks like, we also have been describing what our other senses would perceive as well. We've been doing this work with all kinds of texts - poetry, fiction books, and nonfiction books.
This week, we're going to hone in on the specific words that authors use to create vivid visualizations in readers' minds. We'll also be use our visualizations to infer the authors' meanings in texts.
Writing : Our poetry unit has gotten off to a great start. The students have become pros at writing poems about everyday topics. Ask your child about things around the classroom that he/she has written a poem about. This week, we'll talk about using a 'poets eye' to look at common objects and then move on to writing poems about feelings.
At the same time as poetry, we've been spending some time working on non-fiction books. All of the students have chosen a topic to write about and have created a table of contents for their books. This week, we'll start to write the contents of our books.
Math : Last week, we did a lot of work with the number grid. The students have been learning about how to add 2-digit numbers using the number grid. They've figured out a shortcut on the number grid to do +10. Rather than having to count 10 hops forward, you can just do one hop down! They've been applying this understanding and patterning to solve number grid puzzles.
This week, we'll do a little more work with the number grid and then go back to discussing fractions.
Odds and Ends : Our field trip is this Thursday. On Monday, you will receive more information about the trip. Please read the sheet carefully so that your child is prepared for Thursday. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.