Welcome back from break – I hope that it was a good one for you. Seems like a long time ago that we were in school, but it also seems like we never left.

Great day in Room 240 today – here’s the lowdown:

After Independent Literacy time and Morning Meeting, we had Reader’s Workshop. As you know, we are in the middle of our Author Study Eloise Greenfield, a famous poet. Today we reviewed the poems of hers that we have already read, to get back in the poetry swing of things. Then I gave each of the kids a page that had all of the words from her poem “The Man in Red,” but scrambled. They each cut out the words and tried to rearrange them in an order that made sense, trying to think like a poet. It was a hard thing to try, and there were some very clever uses of the words. Tomorrow we’ll compare their work with what Eloise actually wrote!

After reading, we had a song (Aiken Drum). Then it was on to Writer’s Workshop. We had basically a continuation of Reader’s Workshop. Today I taught the kids about “Found Poetry.” The type of found poetry that we are doing (there are many) is to look at a non-fiction book and cross out the “unpoetic” (unnecessary) words, and then use the words that remain to construct a poem. It’s really pretty cool, and makes nice poetry, actually. We worked on one as a class, and then the kids each chose a page from a non-fiction book to use tomorrow to make their own found poetry (we had to carry over the choosing until after lunch because the wanted some writing time for their own poetry too).

After writing, it was time for lunch and recess, and then back up to the room to choose a page for found poetry tomorrow. When everyone had their book and page, it was time to head down to the gym for class with Mr. Hill and Mr. Peterson. The kids went outside, and did a long run and the 50 yard dash, from what I heard after class.

When we got back up to our room, it was time for Math Workshop. Today we worked on solving addition and subtraction word problems. Our particular focus today was on figuring out whether the problem calls for you to add or subtract, and then making a solid plan for solving the problem.

After math, it was on to Science Lab. Today we added another gadget to the electricity unit - a small motor. The kids worked on making a circuit that included a switch to turn the motor on and off. When they got their circuit up and running, I gave them shapes to spin on the end of the motor, as well as circles that were divided into halves, thirds, fourths, fifths, and sixths to color in and then spin on the motors to see how colors mix. It was fun – the kids made a ton of “discoveries.”

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