The rain also meant that we spent a little too much time inside for playtime this week and more than a few students suffered from cabin fever. I am hoping that next week will allow us to spend more time outside!
Mathematics.
On Friday we looked at place value of numbers. The students are very familiar with describing numbers by their place value (65 is 6 tens and 5 ones for example) but our new unit requires us to break numbers up in a variety of different ways. The students are required to become a lot more flexible in their mathematical thinking, so 65 can be 6 tens and 5 ones but it can also be 4 tens and 25 ones. To help the students get their head around these concepts, I have been using money to represent the tens and ones to give them some physical examples.
Writing and reading!
- What do they look like?
- Where do they live?
- What do they eat?
- What other interesting facts are there?
The students are working in their table groups to research these questions and have had a choice of which way they would like to approach their task. Some groups prefer taking turns with each page whilst others prefer to listen to one member and take notes that they share later.
One area the I have been fairly strict on is reading for understanding. The students have a set amount of time in each lesson (about 15 minutes) to read ONE book. They are not allowed to change their text in that time and must reread the book if they finish early. This has helped them pick out more details with a slower, more methodical approach and has allowed students to obtain more informations they can use for their writing. We spent all week on researching our topics and will begin to use the notes taken next week.
Social Studies.
After we covered the different needs, we then began work on a new project the students will be working on, a tri-rama! This is like a diorama but in a triangle shape (difficult to get your head around but it works out in the end...) The students were thinking what three items for each need they could take on a camping trip to different locations. Their choices were:
A camping trip to the deserts of Australia.
A camping trip on the top of Mount Fuji.
A camping trip to a tropical island in the south pacific (unihabited! No vacations to Guam!)
Due to our field trip, we were unable to make our tri-ramas but I am hoping to have some time next week to finish them up.