Another great day in Room 240 (are you sensing a pattern here?). Here’s how it all went down:

After Independent Literacy Time and Morning Meeting, we had Reader’s Workshop. Today we finished up analyzing another of Eloise Greenfield’s poems, called “Fun.” It’s (as you might imagine) a fun poem to read – it’s about school. Ask your child all about it. During the lesson we talked more about “lovely language” and “inviting images” in the poem, as well as the theme. We also saw how Eloise used onomatopoeia in her poem, and indenting several of the lines. Hopefully, these two techniques will begin to show up in the kids’ poems as well. Then the kids had independent reading time and buddy reading time while I met with reading groups. While they were reading, they were looking for examples of onomatopoeia in their just-right books. At the end-of-workshop share, then, we complied a list of all of the words that they had found (such as zoom, bang, whoosh, boing, bam, etc.).

After Reader’s Workshop, we had a song (again, with the Down by the Bay – I need to teach them some more songs, I think…). After that, it was on to Writer’s Workshop, in which the kids finished up their found poetry. They will be including their found poetry in the writer’s Celebration that we will have as we finish our poetry unit.

After writing, the kids went down to the cafeteria for lunch and then out to recess. When we got back up, we finished the High Rise Private Eyes book (The Case of the Desperate Duck) that we began yesterday, just in time to head down to the gym for class with Mr. Hill and Mr. Peterson. They went outside, but I’m not sure what they were up to, exactly.

When we got back to the room, we had Math Workshop. Today we continued our study of addition facts, by making little books with facts that add up to 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 17. The goal was to get the kids thinking about adding past 10, but also to have them see the patterns that emerge. They will bring the books home tomorrow.

Our Math Workshop went a bit long, so we had a bit less time for Science Lab. After a computer video malfunction (a really cool video on a cool site called brainpop –which we will watch tomorrow, so don’t show it at home tonight… ☺), we talked about the four things that electricity can make (heat, light, motion, and sound). After the kids brainstormed as many things as they could think of that use electricity, we sorted them into a chart according to the thing that is produced.

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