"When witches go riding,and black cats are seen,the moon laughs and whispers,‘tis Halloween."~Author Unknown

Place value was the big idea today in math. Students were combining 21+14. Several of the students decided to use count-on for a strategy. In response to use of that strategy, we again spent time talking about ones, tens, and hundreds. A better understanding of place value is an essential concept necessary for working with larger numbers. Using 10's, 1's and known facts are much more efficient strategies.

Pumpkin Carving Day

Our pumpkin day was made so much more effective because of the parents, other adults, and sixth graders that facilitated the weighing, measuring, carving, and cleaning up afterward. Thank you!

Learning to use the "Fix-up" strategy to improve comprehension was our focus of study in reading this week. I introduced the strategy by reading about 15 seconds from an adult text book to model my use, then I read from a picture book to give the students practice in a large group setting. During their independent reading they used sticky notes to indicated when they used a strategy. The picture is an example of a question one of the boys wrote to fix his comprehension while reading about volcanoes.

When your child reads to you, try stopping them to check on their comprehension and use of strategies. When you read to them model your thinking.

Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

Have you ever wondered how to make a tasty peanut butter sandwich? Try following this recipe... When I asked the students to write "How To" instructions this child chose to write how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I told all of the students that they could make a movie of themselves demonstrating their "How To" writing but he is the only one that brought supplies to complete the project. I hope you enjoy his and his photographer's production.

Reading Strategies

After watching this video, we brainstormed strategies employed to decode unknown words. With the use of the Smart Video Player, we captured frames from the video and recorded our thinking about the strategies used by the reader.

Phonics Links

BBC Blender and Blends are exciting phonics games that support our learning about consonant blends this week. Encourage your student to try out the games at home.

Life Cycle of Beans

Our class has been studying and growing beans since the second week of school. This short digital story explains the life cycle of beans in child terms. In preparation for this project, we took pictures of the beans during the growing process and put those pictures into Windows Movie Maker. Then three students wrote the script and recorded themselves reading their scripts.

the life cycle of beans

How to Books

We are finishing our "how to" book. Students wrote about a wide variety of subjects and each child's "how to" instructions are original. The kids were very careful to use many of the things that we noticed while studying that genre. Several children noticed that there were ellipsis or colon after the materials title so they put the same in their writing. Most of the class noticed and used numbered instructions.

While typing their final products they have become very aware of the red and green lines used in Microsoft Word to indicate that something is incorrect. Editing up to Microsoft Word standards is a real learning process! We are all very proud of the end products.