Week 4

It has been a busy and full week.  We have settled into our routine and are now starting to ramp up what we learning about.  This week, we finished up our investigation of The Three Questions, and we will be moving on to our Portland History study.  This is one of my favorites topics to teach and I am very excited for all the field trips we have coming up.  I sent home a permission slip to go to the Oregon Historical Society in October.  Please make sure you return that school next week.

We have been working on our clock skills to start off the year.  Most kids don't look at regular clocks very often since digital times are everywhere.  It is a hard skill to learn and then it can be hard to practice.   We are practicing telling time and also determining elapsed time.....how much time has passed between 2 different times.  Here we are working with our clocks and learning the math game for the week.

This week we had our first spelling test.  Students test each other, which they LOVE!  The get such a kick out of 'being the teacher.'  The test is good practice to see how well we have learned our words.  I don't want it to be stressful and a "gotcha" kind of thing.  I want students to realize that a test is a way of checking in with your learning.  It lets me know what I need to do to be a better teacher.  It also helps students start to realize what they are doing as learners.

This was out last activity for The Three Questions.  We wrote Cinquain poems on kites to put on our walls.  The topic.....A Good Person.

We also have been getting deep into Writer's Workshop.   The kids love to share their writing during sharing time.  They are working hard to get a piece of writing ready to share.  Next week, we are going to choose a piece of writing and take it through the entire writing process.  

After a student shares, the class gets to ask a "wish" or a "wonder" question.  This is a great way to give feedback to the author.  "I wish you would tell me more about....."  "I wonder what would happen if..."  Students can take this feedback and revise their stories to make them even better.

In art this week, we discussed color tint.  Light blue and dark blue are essentially the same color, but at different tints.  We started with pure white, and added drops of blue as we completed our painting.

We will use this as a background for some spooky, fall art.