Reading Outside

Reading Workshop

Students have started several new series in the last week for Reading Workshop.

~I have one group working on Henry and Mudge. They are convinced they will be able to read all of the books in the series and take a quiz on them.

~Several students are reading the Magic Tree House books and traveling to far away places like the moon. They have passports to fill out for each adventure that will help them understand the stories better.

~Another group is reading the Beverly Cleary book Runaway Ralph. It is the sequel to The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Their focus is on vocabulary and critical thinking about the text.

Hello Red Fox

We read the Eric Carle book Hello Red Fox for our author study, and as usual the children loved it. It is a story of a birthday party that shows that things are not always what they appear to be. This book is filled with characters that change colors before your eyes--a green fox turns red, a yellow butterfly, purple, and many, many more. It uses an optical illusion phenomenon called complimentary afterimage

Here is a link that explains what is happening and why we see the opposite colors when reading the book.

http://www.eric-carle.com/bb-HRFnotes.html

Reading Tent

Students who pass a Reading Counts quiz can opt to sit in the reading tent on the same day. Only two students are allowed inside at any time though. This has been a fun new treat for the students, and they are enjoying it a lot.

Weekly Update

We have been learning many new things this week We read a couple books about George Washington Carver, and learned that he discovered hundreds of new uses for peanuts. He also taught farmers how to do crop rotation and that is was beneficial to their plants.

In math we have continued our practice of double digit addition with regrouping. We will be taking a test on this concept on Friday. Next week we will be starting subtraction with regrouping.

In Writing Workshop, students are working on how-to books, and writing about something they know how to do well. Some of their ideas are how to make oatmeal, how to draw a dragon, and how to build a lego plane.

Many children have moved up a level in Reading Workshop. I am excited to see their progress and that they are making good use of the reading strategies we have learned about.

In science, our amaryllis plant has grown quite a bit. Today the students measured it, and it is already 7 cm. tall.

For project we are learning about money. Students were very interested so far in how it is made, and would like to take a field trip to one of the United States Mints. I explained that they are both too far away, but they said we can just take a plane to get there. So...please let me know if you would be willing to sponsor this trip..HaHa! We will be partnering with the art teacher on an activity to print our own money, and work on other representations in the classroom.