Another nice day in Rom 240!

After Independent Literacy time and Morning Meeting, we were on to Reader’s Workshop.  Today we began a new Author Study on one of my favorite authors (I have a lot of them, as it turns out – occupational hazard, I think…).  We are starting to learn about Mem Fox, who is a very prolific Australian author – for more info on her, click here, or here, or here to hear her talk about her name, or here to hear an interview with her.  She has a ton of cool books – today we read Koala Lou, and tomorrow we will begin to analyze it.  After that, we had independent reading time, and then Reader Response Journals.

After that, we headed straight into Writer’s Workshop – we talked about how our new author friend Mem uses lovely language in her writing, and also how she thinks about her reader as she is writing, which is the focus of our current writing unit.  Then, of course, the kids went off to write.

After writing, we went down to lunch and (outside!!) to recess.  When we got back up to the room, we read another chapter of Mr. Popper’s Penguins, and then it was off to the art room for class there.

When we got back down to our room, it was time for Math Workshop, in which we practiced solving subtraction word problems together as a group and also individually.

After math, we had Science Lab.  We continued our study of sharks – the kids learned the various parts of the shark – ask them about dorsal fins (the ones on the back), pectoral fins (the ones on the underside), and gill slits.  Here is a picture that looks pretty much like the one we looked at in class.

After all of that, it was once again time to clean up, pack up, and bundle up!