How Do You Fit In?

Have you ever stopped to think about how the movement of an object affects its shape? Our class is well into our new math unit called Flips, Turns, & Area where we are investigating how objects change when they are moved by a series of "slides", "flips" and "turns". Visualizing how different shapes fit in space is an important geometric skill many of us use everyday. Suppose you make roll-out cookies with your child. This poses a problem of area. How can you place the cookie cutters so that you cover the most area and have the least amount of dough leftover? Do you have to rotate the cookie cutter to get the best fit? I remember moving into my house a few years back and having to turn chairs sideways to fit through the doorway. In class we are practicing these skills by playing a game called Tumbling Tetrominoes where students have to think ahead and plan strategies to make different 4-square arrangements to best fit an area. I'm encouraging each student to get extra practice at home. Just click on the link and download the game. Enter the password..."Douglas" (no quotation marks, capital D). Students can play using different sized game boards and score is calculated by subtracting the number of empty spaces from the number of possible spaces. We are concentrating on using 120 square-unit game boards so a score might be 120-8(unfilled spaces)= 112. Students can bring us their initialed score sheets for Chance Tickets in the classroom! Have fun!

DRA's, DIBELS, and Book Logs, Oh My!

We plan to finish our DRA testing this week. For those of you who are unfamiliar,DRA stands for Developmental Reading Assessment and it is a test that gives us a guideline of what level the students should be reading on. DIBELS testing was also done on each student. DIBELS stands for Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills and is primarily used to test students' oral reading fluency. All of these tests along with the Benchmarks given a few weeks ago help us to design lessons to meet the needs of our learners. The best way to help your child become a better reader is to have them READ, READ, READ! They should be reading at least 20 minutes every night so remember to fill our those book logs and turn them in. Remember, we need to have at least 7 chapter books read by the end of this grading period. While you're at it, another good way to improve your reading is to practice skills like "inferencing" or making a decision based on what you know about something. A good practice site for this skill can be found at http://www.studyzone.org/testprep/ela4/o/makinginferencep.cfm Click around and enjoy!!!

Literacy Kick-off!

Last Friday we kicked off our 30-Book Literacy Standard by dressing up as our favorite storybook characters. Do you see your favorite character from our class?

Growing Great Scientists

We have been learning about how plants live and grow in our first chapter in Science. We are almost at the end of the chapter and recently our young scientists have observed the different parts of plants and how water moves in them. We did an activity where we classified leaves according to their different traits. We will end the chapter by investigating how fast different kinds of seeds germinate. To help you prepare for your first science test, check out this review game I made at http://www.quia.com/rr/363912.html. Get to a million dollars and enRICH your brain! When you finish, submit a comment telling me your score and your first name to get a special treat in class. Have fun!!!

Book of the Month (August)

Mrs. Spitzer's Garden
by Edith Pattou
Mrs. Spitzer is the wise teacher of Room 108 at Tremont School. Each year she is given a packet of flower seeds that she takes great care to grow and nurture throughout the seasons of the year. At the end of the year she puts away her tools "but the plants will keep growing, uncurling their stems, stretching their leaves outward, and showing their faces to the sun" until she begins again next year. The author, Edith Pattou, originally wrote this book as a gift for her daughter's kindergarten teacher, comparing her watchful nurturing spirit with a gardener. It is a wonderful book that we will be reading throughout the rest of the month that ties directly to our theme at Don Brewer..."Where great minds grow and students bloom"!

What did you do when Tropical Storm Fay came to visit?

Well, we had a few unexpected days off from school thanks to Tropical Storm Fay. I hope everyone was able to stay safe and dry and rest up for a full week of school when we get back on Monday! Fortunately we didn't lose our electricity so I used the down time to catch up on laundry, cook a real meal for my kids (that didn't involve opening a box), and had some fun family game time playing Scattergories, Yahtzee, and In A Pickle!

So, now it's your turn to tell me what you had the most fun doing during our weather days. Click below on the comments section and share your favorite or least favorite part of your days off.

If you have time, check out this fun link http://www.edheads.org/activities/weather/ . It's an interactive sight that has all kinds of educational weather activities for kids. Enjoy!

Why Two Teachers?

You might have been surprised to see that you have two teachers this year. We are participating in a co-teaching situation. That means that we will be teaching the entire class together. We think it's great because that means we always have another set of eyes and ears to help make sure every student is getting his or her needs met. We're excited to get the year started!