Q: What’s more dangerous than pulling a shark’s tooth?
A: Giving a porcupine a back rub!

Another really nice day in Room 240 – here’s the low-down:

To begin the day, the kids had Independent Literacy Time, like usual. Then, at 9:00, we had an assembly for National African-American Parent Involvement Day (NAAPID). The entire school gathered in the gym to see a performance and teaching by a group called Visions of Culture. They shared music and dance (and information) from and about the country of Guinea (in West Africa). They were very good – the kids loved the drumming and the dancing especially well, I think.

After that, we came back up to the room for Reader’s Workshop. Today the kids had a chance to trade in their “just-right” books in their bookbags, and many of them met with me in Reading Group while the others had independent reading and buddy reading time. After that, it was already time to head down to lunch and recess!

After lunch and recess, we headed back up to the room for Read Aloud – Ray brought in a book for us to read. It is from the Geronimo Stilton series and it’s called Cat and Mouse in a Haunted House. It’s pretty funny, as are all of the Geronimo Stilton books. After two chapters, we went down to the gym for class with Mr. Hill and Mr. Peterson.

When we got back up to the room, we had Writer’s Workshop, since we were plum out of time for it in the AM. The kids worked on adding details to their stories, to create what we call a “mind movie” for their reader. While they were all writing, each student met with me in their spelling group to get and read their spelling words for the week – they should be in their folders today. At the end of workshop, each kid who wanted to share had a chance to read the piece that they are currently working on.

At the end of the day (time just FLEW by today), we had time for a short math workshop. We played a dice game in which the kids had to roll a 12 or 20 sided die and then roll a die that had only the numbers 1, 2, and 3 on it. They then had to make a addition number sentence out of it (9+2=11, for instance). The other kids in their group checked their work to make sure that the sentence was a true one.

After all of that, it was time to clean up, pack up, bundle up, and line up to go home.