Well, I'm back, after two days out sick. According to nearly everyone, though, the substitutes were good, and everyone survived.

Today was another good day in Room 240. After Independent Reading and Morning Meeting, we sang a new song - "Six Little Ducks." Then we had Reader's Workshop, in which the kids practiced a skill that they have been developing for the past couple of days - forming questions in their mind about the text as they are reading. We call these "Active Reading Questions." After they had a chance to read from their book bags, they recorded their reading on their reading log, and then responded to it in their Reader Response Journal.

After that, we had a short break time, and then it was on to Writer's Workshop. Today we read a funny book called Always in Trouble, and it gave us ideas of how we could write our own stories. Then, of course, it was off to write.

When we finished writing, we went to lunch and recess, and then back up to the room for REad Aloud. We are in the middle of The School for Cats, which is in the Jenny Linsky/Cat Club series. We then headed upstairs to the art room for class with Mr. Fairbanks.

When we got back to our room, we had Math Workshop. Today we looked at various shapes (we call them "polygons"), and tried to arrange them all so that all of the sides were touching ("adjacent"). Then we sorted them into groups, and found that we could sort them into four-sided figures ("quadrilaterals") and three-sided figures ("triangles"). LOTS of big math vocabulary today...

After math, we had Science Lab. Just as we were headed outside to sketch our class tree again, it began to rain, so we went back up to our room and sketched the guppies and snails that are in the aquaria on the tables.

After all of that, it was time to pack up and head home!