Tuesday and Wednesday...

I was out yesterday afternoon for an appointment for myself and one for my daughter but Mrs. Bowers-an amazing substitute-was here in my place.

Both yesterday and today, we began our day with solving a real-world division problem. They are working through the problems and feeling more comfortable doing so! I think the guided/review homework is helping also...the kiddos really seem to enjoy it and hopefully, it's not taking too long. After going over our homework and the division problem, we had our morning meeting. Yesterday, we talked and shared about overcoming bad things, like what we'd seen from Alfred Tibor. Today, we shared our goal and then played Popl-a game where we practice multiples of a number. In Writer's Workshop yesterday, we continued working on our shared writing. They are not a very sharing group when it comes to their writing ideas! We'll eventually get them done. Today, we began writing an opinion piece. Mrs. Firestone came in and read, The Raft, to us and as we read, we made inferences and supported them with evidence from the text. They were really good at making inferences but had more trouble with giving text evidence to why they made the inference. We are working on writing fiction book reviews in Reader's Workshop this week, reading independently and blogging. Their blogs aren't great...they need to be longer and consist of more information at this point. Keep checking in with your kiddo on their blogs! Unfortunately, yesterday, we didn't get special (Music) so we just worked a little longer on each subject in the morning. Today, some were pleasantly surprised that we had Gym (they thought it would be music). Indoor recess yesterday but outdoor recess today. In Math Workshop, yesterday, they worked with multi-digit multiplication and division problems for practice and then had some ST Math and game time. Today, in Math Workshop, we began fractions. We talked about what a fraction is and what they already knew. Then, they had to show how to: share 4 pizzas among 6 children, 7 pizzas among 6 children and 5 pizzas among 6 children. This was difficult for some to get started but once they got going, they did ok with it. We finished up weathering, erosion and deposition by identifying the differences in Earth's surfaces with each process.