Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Math Homework

We know you all are expecting math homework on Tuesday and Thursday. Our homework usually comes from our math series...however, we do not have those workbooks yet!!! SO...we thought we would post some problems on the blog for your child to complete and return to school the following day! (I understand if this is not possible tonight since I am so late in getting it out!) I will probably set up a homework section either as a page like (all about me, links, classroom needs...) or just a section like "What We Are Learning". BUT for tonight:  You may pick 2 out of the 3 to do. Encourage your child to challenge themselves!
There are several ladybugs.  The first one has 2 dots, the second has 4 dots. If the pattern continues to 30 how many ladybugs will there be in all?
Justice had 14 necklaces.  She bought 9 more. How many does she have now?
 Peyton earned 3 stickers on the first day of school.  Each day he earned 3 more stickers.  How many stickers did he have on the 12th day of school?
CHALLENGE:  If you would like to write your own problem to be posted on the blog...give it a try!  Make sure you can solve your problem!

TOP DOG

Justice brought in one of her favorite books to share with all of us today!

Reading Mini Lesson

We had such fun today during our reading mini lesson.  It's always a GREAT day when students initiate really amazing discussions.  I love "hearing" their thinking! Yesterday we read My Very Big Little World.  We made some good connections about the parents having jobs that produce some NEEDS of ours.  Dad is a baker.  He bakes bread which we need HOWEVER he also bakes cakes and cookies that we do not NEED as one friend pointed out! And Mom is a dentist.  We decided that our health is something that we all need! So today we sorted or classified some pictures on our tree map.  NEEDS  WANTS and CANNOT DECIDES!  Those cannot decides sparked lots of conversation!  Some of them were meat, fish, a veggie garden, television and telephones!  Some thought meat was a need but then we found out that some people don't eat meat at all...hmmmm we came to the conclusion that if we had had a card that said food it would DEFINITELY be a need.  The ones that I found very interesting were the T.V. and Telephone.  The pups immediately said those were NEEDS.  When we asked them to explain why they classified it as a need one said you need the t.v. to watch the weather.  Another student said and I quote, "a telephone is needed to communicate information to others!" WOW such great thinkers.  And BOY am I OLD...Because my first thought was these are only WANTS...I can live without them BUT I think the discussion today may have swayed me to the other side. However, we kept them in the Cannot Decide Category!

  I LOVE LOVE LOVE learning with your children each and every day!  What a great bunch of PUPPIES!!!

Yesterday we did celebrate Landon's birthday!  

GOOD AFTERNOON

Just a heads up...I am a "soccer antie" on Mondays.  SOOO I need to leave school at about 4:30 on these days which make it difficult to update the blog the way I would like to!!! I hope you all understand...My bubbas are precious to me and I want to spend as much time as I can with them!

MONDAY

This week our poem is Rain !

Monday mornings are often a busy time!  

We have really gotten into our authentic journal writing!  The puppies come in and get right to work.  At 8:30 we head off to the library! 

 BUT yesterday we started our practice spelling...Every Monday your child will take a pretest.(Once we start first grade words...2nd 9 weeks those who get all of the words correct on Monday will get an additional set of CHALLENGE WORDS)  He or she will study these words through out the week here at school and hopefully at home.  On Friday, we will take the final test. The final test (2nd 9 weeks) will consist of the 10 spelling words 2 bonus words and a dictation sentence as well as the 5 challenge words for those who received a 100% on Monday. 

Mrs. Biamonte read a story called Chalk.  It is a 2X2 book.  We will try to read all of these this year! This book was a special book! It was a wordless picture book!  Ask your children to retell the story!  (Some children find some chalk at the playground on a rainy day.  They start to draw beautiful things!!! Including the sun.  THOSE things come to life.  One decides to draw a SCARY dinosaur. The children get scared and run to hid in one of the playground tubes.  Mrs. Biamonte asked how our kids thought they could get rid of the dinosaur.  And sure enough someone answered ERASE the dinosaur.  However, the kids were not near the drawing.. So the little boy draws rain inside of the tube!  Sure enough the dinosaur started to "melt" away.)  WE then got to draw with chalk. Although it was not "magic" chalk...We had lots of fun!

When we returned from library we started our Daily 5 with a reading mini lesson. We read My Very Big Little World.  We revisited the purpose for reading.  In this story we were able to make some connections to ourselves and our world.  

Math time brought us to ODD and EVEN.  We have been singing about odd and even numbers for quite some time. MOST of us can name all the odd and even numbers...BUT today was the day...to find out what even and odd ACTUALLY meant.  When I asked what does it mean when we say a number is even some answers were, "2, 4, 6,", "counting by twos", "when the last digit is a 0,2,4,6,8" all good answers but then...someone said, "It's when a number has a twin or a PAIR!"  YAY for coming up with a wonderful definition!  

TOP DOG

Top dog started this week!  Thanks to everyone for getting all about me posters back and doing such a GREAT job! We are looking forward to "meeting" your child throughout the year!

Our TOP DOG IS.....

Justice told us all about herself.  She is a TWIN (I guess that makes her EVEN)!  She has two other sisters as well!  She loves pizza, dressing up and playing soccer! Her favorite destination vacation is DISNEY!  (She is a  sweet, sweet princess!)