Grade 1/2 room 3: Overdue photos from last week

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I apologize for the delay in posting a weekly overview of last week's learning in Room 3.
As you know report cards are just around the corner, therefore I spent my weekend working on those, and as a result neglecting the blog.

Here is a little overview of what the boys and girls worked on last week.

Language:

In Language the boys and girls were given a prompt to write a story titled "A Night at the Museum". They used their knowledge of the five W's and the parts of a story (characters, setting, plot, problem/solution), as well as the beginning, middle and end to write a story and to use their creativity. The focus was not on spelling, but rather to get ideas on paper.
They completed their stories in their journals and then I had a chance to conference with each and every student. Before I met with them, they shared their stories with one another and proofread their work using the success criteria on our board and their word walls for spelling common sight words. After I met with each student, they moved on to create the good copy of their story.
This was a great start into narrative writing.

Additionally, each and every student received their own book bags and three books from their reading level.
The book bag stays in their desks all week and they read the same three books for the whole week before moving on to another three.

Math:

In Math we have received all of our math manipulatives and as such got to explore and work with counters and other materials.
The Grade 1 students were working on adding numbers to the anchors of 5 and 10, whereas the Grade 2`s are looking at anchors of 10, 15, and 20 (early goal to refresh what they already know).
Last Friday I had a diagnostic math assessment for each student. This is in the form of a mini pre-quiz. It is done independently and does not reflect their mark in any way, but rather gives me insight into what they already know. These assessments are imperative as they determine the way that our math unit will pan out. It assists me in ensuring that I have taught each child according to their ability and pre-existing knowledge. I do not want anyone falling behind and this is what ``differentiated instruction`` is all about.

We also started a backwards countdown to Halloween. Each day we crossed out one day as we slowly approached our big spooky day. We used this to practice backwards counting.

Science:

Grade 2 students learned about Habitats. We looked at different types of habitats. Of course, a lesson in habitats could not be complete without Ms. Frizzle and The Magic School Bus. We watched one episode which consolidated and reinforced our learning on habitats.

Art:

In Art our learning goal was how shading and overlapping can make objects appear closer or further away depending on their positioning and the use of shading. The boys and girls started creating a beautiful pumpkin patch that illustrated three pumpkins of different sizes all overlapping.
We took a real pumpkin, closed the lights and put it near the window. This enabled us to see the light hitting the pumpkin. Students made great connections to the pumpkin resembling the moon.

It was another great week and below are some pictures to highlight it:

Also, congratulations to Jonathon for being voted as the star of the week!!!!