Q: Why did the book join the police department?
A: So he could work undercover.

Here’s the lowdown on our day in Room 240 – yet another good one!

After Independent Literacy Time and Morning Meeting, we had Reader’s Workshop. Today I taught a mini-lesson that was really more of a review of past lessons, as a refresher. We talked about and then practiced reading strategies to use when they encounter a tricky word. There are 6 that we discussed today:
1. Looking at the pictures for help
2. Getting your mouth ready to say the word (first sounds)
3. Does the word make sense?
4. Leapfrog – skipping over the word and then coming back to it to figure out what it is from context
5. Chunking – looking for smaller word parts or familiar words inside the word for clues
6. Pointing to the words as you read.

The kids all practiced those skills as they read independently and did buddy reading today. At our end-of-workshop share, each shared one of the particular skills that they used today in their reading.

After reading, we worked on our spelling word sort for the week – the kids brought it home today, along with their words. In each word sort, there is a sound (phoneme) that the kids are working on.

When we finished our word sort, we moved on to Writer’s Workshop. Many of the kids were itching to start a new piece of writing today, so many of them did. Officially, we’re still working on “fixing and fancying” our pieces for publication. At the end-of-workshop share, every student chose the best sentence that they wrote to day to read out loud to the class.

After all of the writing and reading were done, we headed down to the lunchroom for lunch, and then outside for recess. When we got back up, we read some more of our Cam Jansen mystery novel – it’s quite suspenseful. Then it was time to head down the hallway for Media with Mrs. Hennen.

When we got back to our room, we had Math Workshop. Today we worked on refining the kids’ skills in using a problem solving process to solve word problems using both addition and subtraction. It is the same process that we used last week – they are really catching on to it!

After math, it was time for Science Lab. Since we are going to the ExploraDome tomorrow morning (check the Burroughs Bulletin for more information about it, or click here), we worked on some of the vocabulary that they will hear and use tomorrow. We talked about constellation, horizon, and Milky Way. We’ll go back over those terms and a few more tomorrow before we go.

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