The kids came into class perfectly and got right to work on their warm-ups with handwriting and geography. I called on volunteers to share out their answers which had to do with what's on a Legend on the map, and which countries border the United States.
Once the warm-ups were out of the way, I instructed the class to take out last night's math homework. We reviewed both assignments covering whole numbers and comparing whole numbers. I put a few related problems on the board for the class to demonstrate their understanding in their math notebooks of the skills we've been learning. One of the newer ideas is the expanded form using exponents and the powers of ten. What I did for that was listed all the powers of ten from the zero power to the tenth power. For the zero power, the rule is that any number to the zero power equals one.
We're learning to use expanded form with exponents because with numbers into the billions, expanded form can be very long. Exponents can help to simplify writing those kinds of big numbers.
We then focused on our math lesson for the day which would be much like Wednesday's lesson on place value. The difference was that our lesson this morning was on the place value system for decimals. I had volunteers hold place values for the ones place, a card with a decimal and another with "and" on it, and then students to hold tenths, hundredths, thousandths, all the way through the millionths place. We read them aloud together. We practiced writing decimals and reading decimals. And to complete the lesson, I had students work out of their practice book on decimals.
With math complete, we prepared for our first P.E. class with Mrs. Pane. The kids brought out their snack because P.E. ends at recess time, 10:30am.
I picked up the kids after recess and when we came back to class it was time to begin our lessons on the components from Rope Burn. The first thing we did was the grammar lesson out of the Grammar Practice Book on complete sentences (declarative and interrogative). The students had to determine if sentences were either fragments or complete sentences. If they were fragments, what words could we add to make them complete?
We then split up and played a fun spelling game called "Buzz" in which each spelling word is spelling one letter at a time by a different student. The kids were in a line that streteched across the room. For each word, every time we get to a vowel, the student has to say the word "buzz" for the vowel or else I ring the bell and they're eliminated. Several students made it all the way through our 20 assigned words and even the five bonus words! They wanted to play another game of "Buzz" but we had to move on!
At this point, I had the class find four partners called Clock Partners. This is to help with group or partner activities and it's called Clock Partners because the kids make a circle with the numbers written in it like they are on a clock, with 12, 3, 6, and 9. For each number, they had to exchange notebooks with a neighbor and agree to be their partner. So everyone winds up with four new partners. I was planning on using one of the clock partners to help us with a fluency practice activity after lunch.
When we completed the sign-ups for Clock Partners, we left for lunch. I picked up the class on the playground and brought them back to our air-conditioned room and we started with the fluency practice. Each student took one minute to read aloud from Rope Burn while their partner listened and gave feedback, and then they changed roles from listener to reader.
We transitioned to our Entry-Level Assessment (ELA) for language arts and students worked on completing each section from the essay to reading comprehension to vocabulary. I pulled students during this time to complete their reading fluency portion of the test.
The class worked on the ELA until about 2:40 and then I assigned tonight's homework and prepared the class for dismissal. Before leaving everyone had to leave their Bio Poems with me and then headed for home! It was another great day in Room 16!
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