We've had a momentous March with lots of learning and special events. It's been hard to find the time to blog, but I wanted to update you on where we are.
Last week, we had a performer teach us a bit about West African drumming, and some students got to try it out.
Language:
We've examined a variety of non-fiction texts, like books about animals and body systems. Students are beginning to become familiar with some non-fiction features like graphs, captions, glossaries, and indexes. We've also looked at some specialized texts like atlases and dictionaries so I can teach students to use them directly.
A great book for our dictionary adventures has been "The Great Dictionary Caper", which helped inspire some of these dictionary reading responses.
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| I can use the dictionary to find...words that say butterfly |
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| I can use the dictionary to find ... rhyming words |
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| I can use the dictionary to find... words that turn into other words |
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| I can use the dictionary to find... new animals and mores stuff too. |
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| I can use the dictionary to find...new words and old words. |
Most students have now moved up a level in their reading and some are ready to try moving up 2 or 3 levels. Students at D level are working on long vowels and comprehension. Students at F are working on building fluency and comprehension. Students at I are building sight vocabulary with "ea" and "ai" words right now. Students at J are working on showing their thinking and adding details. All students continue to work at using lower case letters and word wall vocabulary when they're writing in their journals.
Science:
We're finishing up our Living Things units. Students presented their animal projects and took a quiz showing their comprehension of what they presented. I've been working on answering student questions and looking at different body systems as well.
We had Sci High in the classroom to teach us about dna. Students looked at mice that had been genetically altered to glow in the dark with the insertion of jellyfish dna, and extracted some dna from a banana.
Right before March Break, we finished our unit on Data Management. Students took home their worksheets (stapled into a makeshift package), as well as their final assessments. In general, students were able to make graphs and read graphs, but less able to talk about the information a graph gave them or to think about the data they got. Looking at a variety of data sources critically will be a continued goal for our class. Here are some of the more cogent responses:
Thanks for checking in. As always, I hope to blog more frequently in the coming weeks and I'm excited about our next steps.
Sincerely,
Ms. Goegan
