Cold Tuesday in the City!

Did I read my thermometer correctly... I think it said 12 degrees this morning. That was NOT FUNNY!  Even less humorous... the heating system at school was OUT this morning.  Luckily the maintenance department had it working before 8:30 and the school slowly started to warm up.  It is noon now and the room is nice and toasty!

• 1st / 2nd - Literacy Block
• Today we started out with our 20 minutes of independent reading.  Parents, after looking at the last STAR Reading Test, it is clear that some of your children are not reading at home.  PLEASE - 20-30 minutes each night.  Make sure they are reading.  Read to them, Read with them. Listen to them read to you.  It is VITAL for their entire future as readers to build their skills NOW.  We then did our Tuesday Word Work using Word Ladders.  Finally we broke into floor time and re-read The Frog Princess together.  We focused on how this text was similar and different from The Year of Miss Agnes.  We stopped repeatedly and said how is this section alike or different from Miss Agnes?  This is an easy method to compare and contrast two texts.   We also looked again and the literal and non-literal meaning of words and phrases. 
• We ended the class with co-writing an extension of The Frog Princess (What COULD happen next).  We made sure that we included characters we already know, start with a problem or situation, have sequence of events leading to a solution that makes sense.  Finally - the characters should have some dialogue to help tell the story.  We wrote one together in 7 minutes and the students really liked it.  Then they had 20 minutes to work on their own extension to the story.  If they didn't finish - HOMEWORK!
  
• 3rd/4th - Math Block
• We started the class by looking at number talks.  The focus today was distributing a smaller number to make larger numbers that are friendly.  For example, if you have 98 + 97 + 5 .... give the 98 two of the five to make 100 and give the 97 three of the five to make 100, then simply say 100 + 100 equals 200.  This is the way they should be looking at numbers.. how can I make this friendly!  How can I do this "in my head" with numbers I know.  
• After a quick review, we put up the testing boards and students worked on their Chapter 6 Math Test.  Tomorrow will be the performance task for Chapter 6 before we start Chapter 7.  PLEASE - it is so important that students are practicing and working with their multiplication and division facts on a daily basis so these processes and facts become part of their daily life... we have practiced enough that now they should be looking at automaticity and KNOWING them.
• 5th - Lunch
• 6th - Science
• 7th - Social Studies - Chapter 2 Wrap Up and End of Chapter Questions

Homework:

1. Math - Division Facts - Practice Sheet
2. Reading - Week 4 Day 1 - reading comprehension 
3. Writing - Extension for The Frog Princess