Welcome Back!

It was wonderful seeing everyone back from our little break. I know I was thrilled to have all of my friends back in school today. We covered a lot so I am going to give you a run down of the day. I am trying to do this more often during the week since my son is now going to bed at a reasonable hour:-)

Reading AM - We began the morning in guided reading groups. One groups is reading a book on things that melt! It might be fun to try some experiments at home - WITH PARENT SUPERVISION! Another group is reading about a girl who is trying to be more responsible with her glasses. My last group is reading a book called "OH NO", I leave you to predict what that one is about. After our reading rotations students met with me on the carpet to discuss cause and effect relationships in stories. We read George and Martha - The Box today. We determined these two cause and effect relationships:

George's Mexican jumping beans got out because Martha untied the box.

Martha was out of breath because she was chasing all of the jumping beans!

Cause - Because
Effect - what happend
After reading we discussed our new animal research. Students selected an animal to research and began looking over a book with a partner to learn information. We will be putting our notes into sentences and creating a book. After recess we went over our grammar work and discussed our new spelling words. Students glued in their new words and lists for the next two weeks.

Reading - PM - We began our afternoon with our grammar warm-up and discussion of the weekend! Then we were off to reading groups. Two groups are reading Shoe Shine Girl, a story about a little girl that goes to stay with her Aunt Claudia because she is having trouble at home. For word work we discussed suffixes and how they are letters attached to the end of a root word. Another groups is reading about a strange dragon who is having a birthday. After reading groups we discussed cause and effect relationships and students created their own sentences and illustrated them. We are going to go over them tomorrow. Then we brainstormed animals we would like to research, WOW were there a lot. Students are going to researching an animal and learning how to write complete paragraphs using their information. We will be discussing a topic sentence and supporting information. Students also received their new spelling words and assignments for the week. These are tough words, please let me know how they are doing with them!

Well that was our day in a nutshell. Don't let your kids tell you they did nothing in school today:-) Please sign those reading logs!
Love,
Mrs. Del Balzo