What are we doing?

January 30-February 3
Today in reading, our class worked on writing stories about what they would do if they had $100.  We discussed what $100 might buy and things that it would not buy.  The students also worked on portraits of themselves now and one hundred years from now.  During small group, the students wrote five things that they've learned in the last 100 days.  We made a paper chain out of all of the things they've learned.  Stop by our classroom to see the paper chain!  During math, the students worked on counting and writing their numbers to 100 by filling in a 100s chart.
The rest of the week, we will be settling into our new reading groups.  The students are working on writing personal narratives, stories about themselves, and making sure that they have capital letters and periods where they belong.  Students are continuing to work on their bedrock words and word sorts.  On Tuesdays, the students have become "word detectives"!  They search for words in their books, on the word wall and in other places that fit our word sort for the week.  They record their findings in a notebook.
***Things you can do at home: be a word detective with your child!  Look for words in their books at home that match our word sort for the week.  If you want, have your child write it down and put it on the refridgerator!  Doing an activity like this makes students aware of spelling patterns that we see in all of our books.
We will be continuing our work with measuring in math.  The last couple of weeks the students became "measuring masters" by learning to start at the beginning and measure to the end, leave no gaps and measure in a straight line.  We started by measuring fish and deciding whether or not they were "keepers".  This week, we'll be comparing measurements to see which line or object is longer.
***Things you can do at home: Compare how long things are at home.  Ask if the kitchen counter is longer or shorter than another object in your home.  Questions like this get students thinking about how long objects are in real life and how long they are in comparison to other objects.

Don't forget, book orders are due this Friday!