Snow

Poem: Come Skating

Sight Words: come, said

Reading: This week students learned about Author's Purpose. We introduced the concept by using the acronym PIE (persuade, inform, and entertain). Each day we read a book and explained the differences between each purpose. We used the books, I Wanna Iguana and Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus when talking about persuade. We also used advertisements to show that people persuade others to eat certain places and do certain things, like Chick-Fil-A.

This week we started learning about the h brothers. The h brothers are digraphs that are found in so many words. We made puppets and used them to help learn the sounds and determine words that have the h brother. We work on the following h brothers: sh, ch, th, and wh.

This week we read the story "The Hat" while listening for the following vocabulary words: clothesline, woolen, perked, cackle, startled, and snorted.

Writing: This week we began our next writing unit; Informational Writing. We started by reading an informational book about Polar Bears and discussed how authors write to teach others about a topic. We then started brainstorming a list of topics we know a lot about. While modeling our planning page, students helped write facts about a topic that we chose from our list. Students went back and completed their planning page to match the class example.

Math: This week students learned about the phrases greater than, less than, and equal to. They added these words into their writing folder before moving on to their math app for week. Throughout the week students used a variety of resources and tools to show their understanding of greater than, less than, and equal to. We started by using cubes to show 2 groups and used our words to describe greater than, less than, and equal to. Students were able to get up and moving with slides to "eat" the bigger number. Then we used our new rekenreks to show the math concept. Rekenreks are a math tool that has 2 rods with 10 beads on each rod. Students slide the beads to either side to show a specific number.

Content: This week we learned about and explored snow. We started by talking about what snow is and brainstormed snow/winter words. Then we used real snow (that I had to keep in the freezer due to warmer temperatures) to use in our experiment. Students were asked to predict if snow would float or sink. After making predictions students were able to test their hypothesis using a ball of real snow. We then talked about icebergs and how they form.

The next day we discussed that snow can take on a liquid and solid form. We learned about liquids and solids through a short video then students searched for examples of solids and liquids in magazines that we put together on a chart. Students were excited to work together to do their first STEM activity. They were given the task to make the tallest snowman using only the materials given to them (8 big marshmallows, 15 small marshmallows, and 16 toothpicks). They did such a good job working together and persevering even when their snowman fell over. We finished the week by using a new app DoInk Green Screen to make it look like students were in a snow globe! After taking their picture and using the app, students created the rest of the craft to make it look like a snow globe.

SEL: This week we talked about friendship. We started by reading the book Stick and Stone. We spent time discussing scenarios where people were a good friend and reflecting on our friendships. We took the 5 finger friendship challenge by learning 5 things that make us a good friend. We also read Enemy Pie towards the end of the week and discussed the importance of treating our enemies with kindness.

NEXT WEEK:

Reading: Students will...
-learn and practice predicting in  story.
-learn/produce words in the -ut word family. 

Writing: Students will...
-learn about nouns.
-begin to write their own informational planning page. 

Math: Students will...
-learn about linus the minus.
-practice subtraction. 

Content: Students will start the week by learning about Martin Luther King Jr. Throughout the remainder of the week students will learn about polar animals.