Multiplication Madness!

This week have been learning about multiplication. Yesterday we played with skittles and made 'groups' and 'arrays'. After that, we made multiplication mushrooms (that I will post tomorrow) that came out awesome and colorful! Today we learned how multiplication relates to repeated addition. The kiddos came up with their own word problem, wrote the repeated addition sentence, and the multiplication sentence. We shared them as a class and stuck them on our little chart. After this, I read 'If You Give A Cat A Cupcake' and the students made a cat with cupcakes and sprinkles. I will take pictures and post these tomorrow as well. Here are some pictures from this week!

Making Inferences

This week we have been learning about making inferences and how you use your schema (background knowledge) and clues from the text to make an inference. Today we read a story about Tim and his Grandma Sue. The students used magnifying glasses to look through their 'snowy case file' for evidence on what Tim and his Grandma Sue did on their snowy day. They made inferences about what they did and when by discussing the evidence within their group. We came together as a whole class and discussed the evidence and how it related to each other. Tomorrow we will make a timeline on what we think Tim and Grandma Sue did throughout their entire snowy day!

Measuring and crashing cars with force!

The students experimented with force and motion some more today. They measured 30 cm from a wall, illustrated it, then drew what happened when the hot wheels car crashes into the wall. They discussed the force, motion and how each affected what they observed. Then the measure a specific distance and crashes two cars into each other. They observed this and then recorded what happened. They had a blast!

Text Features

Today we introduced text features of expository text. While I went through the different text features we will be studying this week, the kids had buckets of books I selected beforehand, to look through. The students would look for the text feature and then explain to their group what it's purpose is and how it helps them as a reader. Great lesson!

Money!

Today we were reviewing money on the SmartBoard and using play money to count while we were solving problems. We used the whiteboards to write our answers down. Super fun!! We began the lesson with the poem 'Smart' by Shel Silverstein. The kids had money in front of them that the switched out as the character switched out his money in the poem. It's a funny poem. It shows how important it is to know the values of money! Pictures to come of our continues lesson!

The Students Teaching Poetry!

We have been discussing poetry these past couple of weeks. This week the students are assigned a type of poetry we haven't discussed in class (limerick, haiku, acrostic, Narrative, Shape). They are to investigate the poetry and figure out the rules and patterns it follows with their group. After they do this, they are to come up with their own 'lesson' to teach the class. The decide what their objective will be, activity, any materials they need, an search for outside resources that will help teach their lesson. They also need an assessment that will show them their 'students' met the objective. I explained to them that it is exactly what I do for every lesson and every subject. I will make the copies for them but they will be totally in charge of planning and teaching their class. Very exciting! Here are the kids brainstorming. I can't wait to see their actual presentations!

Clapping out the syllables to see if there is a pattern.

 

Reading the poems and noting any patterns.

Recording patterns they see.

Comparing the poems.

Beginning their draft for their lesson!

Here is the lesson criteria they are to have. They are to make a draft, discuss it with me and I will help them gather the materials necessary to teach their "students".