Week of September 18th

This week, we have been focusing on our writing; specifically, we are beginning to address the difference between complete and fragmented sentences. We introduced the concept of nouns and adjectives and the importance of having a period, exclamation or question mark at the end of our sentence. We continue to review letter formation and apply our understanding that letters can be formed or present in the sky, grass or dirt (see attached photograph). Greater knowledge of upper and lowercase letters will be our goal to ensure our printing does not contain uppercase letters in the middle of a word and only present for now when we write "I" a person's name, and at the beginning of a sentence. As we become more proficient with these concepts, they will be added to the student's self-editing checklist to be cued to correct these errors independently. Our ten spelling words this week to continue to practice are:

for

with

they

about

each

I 

have

but

you

one

This week, in math, we have been extending our knowledge of patterns to include simple number patterns made by adding or subtracting a constant difference (gap) between successive terms (e.g., 5, 8, 11, 14). We are learning to recognize and write a simple rule for such a number pattern (e.g., start at 5 and add 3 each time) and extend these number patterns using a rule. We are also learning to identify an ascending and descending pattern. Next week, we will learn about T-tables and how they can be used to keep track of and extend number patterns and solve simple real-world problems involving number patterns.

In math, we have also begun to address the steps involved in answering a story word problem. To answer a math word problem, the students have been asked to implement the following steps: 1) Underline keywords in the math word problem, 2) Show your thinking, and 3) Answer the problem in a complete sentence. First, the students listened to the story entitled "A Three Hat Day." After listening to the story, they were given the following task; "Suppose R.R. Pottle wanted to cheer himself up on another day with the same three hats, but he decided to put on the hats in a different order. The problem for you to solve is to figure out how many ways R.R. Pottle could wear those same three hats if he wanted to wear them in a different order each day." This was a fun problem that is a lovely extension of a simple yet enduring children's book. The students did a great job, and it was wonderful to see the various strategies and ways they solved this problem.