The Daily Blog (Sept 4) - Mr. McMurray

Today was the first Friday of the school year and this afternoon would begin Labor Day weekend. We were busy from 8:10 until 2:50 with a variety of activities. We got started by having our president, Bella, lead us in the flag salute and a short class meeting about how our plans for Labor Day weekend. She made a few announcements and excused students to turn in their homework. A few students forgot an assignment, so we did not add to our Paper Clip Chain today.

As you can see from above, one of the first projects we returned to this morning was the Symmetrical Name Creatures. Many students completed their decorating today, and a good handful are close to finishing. Some of the finished examples are shown above on today's Daily Blog. Students were able to capture the essence of symmetry through this math-art project this week.

While students worked quietly and hard on their name creatures, I was finishing oral reading fluency tests with about a third of the class. We worked right up until 8:45 when it was time to head to the playground to meet Mrs. Pane for PE. She spent the next 50 minutes working out the class and introducing a game before I picked them up.

Once we returned to the classroom it was time to launch our first language arts theme entitled, "Nature's Fury." I did this by sharing a poem from the Native American Pima tribe, "Wind Song" which is about thunder sweeping across the plains. We had a discussion about severe weather and what the name of this theme, nature's fury, means. The class shared many examples and experiences of witnessing severe weather in their lives and I could tell that had a strong grasp of this theme during our discussion.

To wrap up our introduction to "Nature's Fury," I challenged the class to recall an experience from their life when they witnessed severe weather. The class began to brainstorm a list of words and phrases they could think of to describe the sights, sounds, and movements of their experience.

After our recess break, the class was split into groups of three to continue brainstorming and developing a short poem. For an additional challenge, some students approached this poem from the point of view of an animal, object, or element in nature for their poem.

I collected the poems at the appointed time and a few volunteers shared what they had written.

Millions of rain drops hurling down the sky

They felt like needles as they pounded down

My face as the wind whistled through my ears

The ground was covered in water.

~ Will

When I hear loud BOOMS outside

It's probably coming from the sky.

It may be scary and it may be rainy,

But it is always peaceful to me.

~ Kannen

It was slashing and slicing

and it was one hundred degrees outside

there were red and orange swirls

that were dancing with the wind

shaky, scary, and exciting

the sandstorm was beautiful.

~ Julia

Now I feel a cup shaking.

Now I feel a cup shaking.

Now I see the ground moving.

Now I feel my feet shaking.

~ Sarah

The thunder roars in my ear.

It makes streaks in the sky.

It should be over soon.

~ Elliott

The wind blew my branches,

The wind blew my leaves,

I was smothered in flying dust,

The wind making a low whirring noise.

~ Claire

Sleeping in bed I saw a flash of light.

Terrified.

Then I heard loud thunder.

Then my cat sprung up, with her eyes wide.

~ Bella

Fire is scary and dangerous

Fire is cool and rough

Fire is loud and freaky

Fire is sad and bad.

~ Ondray

After the poetry project we turned our attention to today's math lesson on rounding numbers. We began by having our president, Bella, call nine students to come forward and hold number cards. Volunteers then shared out how they would begin to round the number that was being held up by the nine students holding their cards. We had to go to the number being rounded and look to the student to the left of that person to see if their number was either 5 or higher, or 4 or less, to determine how to round. After a few more examples involving the volunteers, I presented the class with our Problem of the Day on the overhead projector. This was followed by a few specific rounding problems I expected the class to do independently. We spent time reviewing the answers to these problems from the lesson and then it was time to prepare for lunch.

Students put their reading books on their desks and lined up for lunch. After lunch and recess, the class returned to the room and we enjoyed silent reading time. I continued working with another group of students individually on the oral reading fluency tests.

At 2:00 we began our science lesson on the hydrosphere. We took out our science notebooks and recorded a few important notes on things like, "3% of the hydrosphere is not made of ocean water," and "all of the earth's water is what makes up the hydrosphere." We learned about ocean currents and more about salinity and the differences between the world's oceans.

I was going to show the class a brief video on "Rivers and Deltas" but the DVD was scratched, so we wrapped up our discussion in the book by reviewing some questions from the text on the vocabulary. I informed the class to prepare for a quiz on the Chapter 5 Science vocabulary next Friday, September 11.

At 2:40 I pulled out a favorite book, "Entertain Your Brain" and posed a few brainteaser and logical thinking problems to the class. This made for a fun end of the day / end of the week activity. The inheritance problem about the King of Ireland was rather amusing. You should ask your child to tell you that problem.

We stacked chairs and exited the classroom for a three-day weekend at 2:50. It has been a busy, yet enjoyable first week of school. I can't wait to see everyone on Tuesday. OK, maybe I can wait just a little bit. Have fun, everyone!