Monday, November 9 - Sunday, November 22
*We do not have school on Monday, November 23rd.
*Please send final reading logs and money to school on Tuesday, November 24th. Thank you!
Writing
Descriptive Writing
For the next couple of weeks we will focus on descriptive writing. Students learned that when you write a descriptive paragraph you use your five senses to create a picture in the reader's mind (taste, touch, smell, hearing, sight).
As a class, we started the unit by brainstorming a list of describing words. We will continue to add to this list throughout the unit and students will be able to use these words to help them complete their writing task.
Personal Narratives
Students also shared their published writing pieces with the class.
Reading
Story Elements - Readers Meet the Characters in Our Books
Our new reading unit focuses on story elements and learning more about characters. Our class discussed that like a puzzle, stories have lots of pieces and for it to be complete, we need all of the parts!
Story Elements
- Characters
- Setting
- Plot (beginning, middle, end) - key events
- Problem
- Solution
Students spent time reading "just right" books and completing their own story element puzzles, drawing pictures and writing about the characters, settings, plot, problem(s), and solution(s) in their books.
Math
Shapes - Solid Shapes
This week students were introduced to solid shapes: cube, rectangular prism, sphere, cylinder, pyramid, and cone. We created posters for each new shape and talked about faces, edges, and vertices. They compared the shapes and discussed if they can stack, roll, and/or slide and made geoblock footprints by tracing the shapes on paper. Students also built models and practiced drawing 3D shapes.
Geoblock Footprints (faces)
- cylinder: circle
- square pyramid: square, triangle
- rectangular prism: rectangle
- cone: circle
- cube: square
Math Vocabulary
Solid shapes 3D shapes Cone Pyramid | Sphere Cylinder Cube Rectangular Prism | Faces Edges Vertex Vertices Apex |
Science
Changing Sound - Volume
During Science we explored changing sound and focused on volume. During our lessons, students investigated a one-string guitar and a xylophone. We reviewed that sounds come from objects that are vibrating and that vibrating objects always make sound. Students learned that volume is how loud or soft a sound is and sounds can differ in volume.
Next week we will investigate changing pitch.
Science Vocabulary
Volume: how loud or soft a sound is
Pitch: how high or low a sound is
Music
Recess