What we have been learning...

Reader's Workshop

In Reader’s Workshop this week we continued reading and learning about animals living in our environment. We've been specifically thinking about our Weekly Question: "How do animals survive in their habitats?" and the structures they have that allows them to thrive and be successful in their habitat.  

This week we read two main texts; What do you do with a tail like this?, and the poem "Falcon Fledge" from Hidden City: Poems of Urban Wildlife. We continued to focus on using key details from the text (illustrations, words, and text features) to understand how animals adapt to their environment and how they use their structures to survive and thrive.  We also thought about how or why an author might choose to present information in a poem. This coming week, we will use the text How Chipmunk Got His Stripes: A Tale of Bragging and Teasing to think about how animals, including humans, are connected to each other and to their environments.

Word Study

In Word Study, we have been working on reading and writing words from short /ă/ word families with glued sounds (and, am, ank, an).  This coming week we will work with reading and writing words with short /ǐ/ word patterns (in, it, ig).

Last Week's Weekly Words:

• predator: an animal that hunts and catches other animals for food
• burrow: a hole or tunnel in the ground made by an animal
• basic need: something that plants and animals need to survive, such as air, water, food, space, light, and shelter
• survive: to stay alive
• shelter: a safe place where animals live
• prey: an animal that is hunted by another animal

Next Week's Weekly Words:

• rain forest: a rich, warm forest with lots of rainfall and a wide variety of plants and animals
• tundra: a large, flat area where the ground underneath is permanently frozen
• desert: a dry area of land with very few plants, usually covered by sand
• forest: a large area covered mostly with trees and undergrowth
• pond: a small body of still water
• ocean: the sea; a saltwater habitat predator, burrow, basic need, survive, shelter, prey

Writer's Workshop

In Writer’s workshop we are working towards researching and writing non-fiction texts about animals.

This week students are learning that as non-fiction writers, they will be able to pick a topic they know well and are interested in to write about. We began learning how to identify important information about our topic and began to research their topic further. In the coming weeks we will be starting to work on writing our all-about books and how to turn our research into writing, including: writing enough information to satisfy our readers and using text features to present information in a clear and interesting way.

Math

In math, students have been working on solving addition problems with multiple (up to 3) addends. They are practicing the use of strategies to find all the possible combinations to equal a number and considering whether the order of addends affects the total. We are also continuing to work on visualizing and representing story problems with numbers, pictures, words or other equations. We will begin to work on Interpreting and using standard notation (<, >, +, -, =) and Generating equivalent equations for a number next week.

Science

In Science, students had a chance to collect data and record their observations of our classroom terrariums in their science notebooks!

The grass has sprouted in our critters habitat!

Studios

In studios, students have been building animal habitats with Legos, Kapla Blocks, and Beautiful Stuff. Further, our drama, writing and drawing studios have been combined for students to create and act out animal stories that show how where an animal lives impacts its behavior and its survival. Next week, students will be adding oil pastels to their art arsenal and playing an animal-habitat matching game as part of our science studio.

Questions to ask your student!

• If I had 10 crayons and some were red and some were blue, how many of each could I have? Find multiple combinations!
• What did you learn about a fledgling falcon this week? What is their habitat? How do they adapt to survive in an urban habitat?
• What changes have you observed in your terrarium?