September 7, 2012

The students have been doing lots of fun, hands-on science activities! Last week, we looked at shark teeth and practiced our classifying skills by putting them into groups. This week, we began to talk about how to classify animals, and students were very excited to observe our earthworms yesterday to determine what makes them an animal and if they're a vertebrate or invertebrate.

Students also received their first project of the year, an ABC book in social studies. They will be working in groups with each student having several letters they are responsible for. This will be due the week we take our test, which should be around the week of the 24th. We will also be having a science test the week of the 17th. I'll post the exact dates as we get closer, and I know exactly when we'll have finished covering all the material.

In reading, we are almost done learning the routines we'll use throughout the year. Every day will consist of reading to yourself, reading to someone, writing, or working on words with the iPads. We've gone through all the procedures necessary for reading to yourself and reading to someone, and will work next week on the last two activities. After that, students will choose which two they'd like to work on each day as I meet with the students either one-on-one or in small groups.

We've begun to draft our first writing pieces of the year, and I'm hoping to complete them by the end of next week. Students will have time in writing class to work on these, but may need to work at home, too, if they are unable to finish in the time we have in class.