Tuesday AND Wednesday

I'm so sorry that I didn't blog last night...My hands hurt so bad! (I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and this back to school stuff has been tough on me.) Anyway, here is what we did yesterday and today!

In our morning meeting, we got into groups and each group had the goal of making the longest chain possible. (You can check out pictures on our Twitter and Facebook pages.) They thought they'd all be the same length because they started with the same size piece of paper but nope. Then, we read, The Important Book and focused on the way the author chose to write the book, more than the message of it--describing things, repeating first and last sentences, opinion. Students then brainstormed important things about themselves. In Wonder, we learned a little more about Auggie and wrote our ideas in our Read Aloud spirals. We will use these each day to record our thoughts, ideas and questions. We then focused this same way while reading independently and recorded a thought about the text on a post-it note. After lunch and recess and Music, we had a Number Talk where kiddos use strategies and mental math to solve a string of problems. Then, we watched a short video on how we learn math by making mistakes. Again, we are still setting up our math workshop so not into much content yet. After math, Mrs. Shively came in to read a book and teach us about empathy and compassion. First, she read, My Brother Charlie that a girl wrote about her brother with Autism. Then, we put on gloves and used our non-dominant hand to write our names. We also used special goggles and tried to throw a ball to a friend.

Today, we began our day with Guidance with Mrs. Vidic. Then, we worked on our high frequency words by looking for patterns or helpful hints and making some flash cards. (Some kiddos went for a Boy Scout meeting.) We learned more about Auggie in Wonder and did some "real reading." After gym, lunch and recess, we had another successful number talk and then began our math workshop with folding paper showing fractions. We watched a video that showed that math is a SLOW process and you don't need speed to be successful. Unfortunately, I don't think they all believe that yet because they rushed through and needed me to point out the intention of the lesson. We also had our first fire drill and earned a potato head piece for our awesome behavior! Finally, since Social Studies in 4th grade is all about Ohio, we made a list of what we know already about Ohio and then worked on an All About Ohio poster.

Whew-busy two days!!