Rainy Monday

Welcome Back!!!  Well, Welcome back to most of you....had a lot of people come in late or not show up today... guess they were not quite done with Easter Weekend.  Remember:

• ELA State Testing is Next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday 4/5, 4/6, 4/7
• Math State TEsting is the following Wednesday, Thursday, Friday! 4/13, 4/14/, 4/15

Every instructional minute counts!  Please be here every day from 8:15 - 2:35!

• 1st / 2nd - Math Block (3.MD.A1)
• The focus today was finding either a starting or stopping time using elapsed minutes.  We showed them two methods for figuring it out.  One method was using the time number line to show intervals of time elapsed (either going forward from the start time, or backward from the ending time) and measuring the elapsed time or counting the elapsed time.  The other method was using the clock face and counting elapsed time either forwards or backwards. 
• We broke into groups and worked on pages 579-582.  We ended with me going over two of the challenge problems on page 581 where you had to solve one part of the problem to be able to solve the other part of the problem. Students need to slow down and use the methods we showed to do these problems.  
• 3rd / 4th - Literacy Block 
• We started with our Spelling Pre-Test for list #20.  We then moved to the floor to work with our text "Storm in the Night".  Our focus was using illustrations to provide more information on the characters, setting, and plot.  We also focused on recounting the first part of the text.  Our writing focus was providing reasons for an opinion.  We went over the three ways to provide reasons 1. Facts, 2. Personal Experience/Connection, and 3. Text Evidence.  We also reviewed the job of an adjective.
• After going over 7 new vocabulary words, we read pages  14-27 from the text.  Students were able to answer reading comprehension questions after reading.  Then we did our mini-lesson how how illustrations help tell the story.  We broke into individual work time as I modeled the first illustration, what I saw, and how it helped describe what was really going on.  We did the second illustration "together" and the third page they did on their own.  This gradual release model is known as "I Do", "We Do", and "You Do!"  After they finished and we shared, we moved into working more on our opinion pieces by adding strong reasons to our opinion from lesson 3A.4 and 3A.5.   We are going step by step on how to craft a good opinion piece in preparation for the PBA after lesson 3A.18.  
• 5th - Lunch
• 6th - Gym with Mr. Nunez
• 7th - Test Prep - Class Novel "The Chocolate Touch"
• The document camera was working earlier, so we had to test prep at the end of the day for ELA and Math.  Then we finished the day by reading from our class novel.

Homework:

• Math
• GoMath Lesson 10.4 Homework pp 583-584
• Watch the Video Links in the blog for help 
• Literacy
• ReadyGen Writing 3A.6 (reasons)
• Spelling 2x Each
• Reading 45-60 Minutes - Log