Second week in!

We made it through a hot week of school.  I keep telling the class that we are spoiled to have air conditioning in our classroom and they believe me every time we share it with another class.  We had a few afternoons with Mrs. DeZwaan's third graders joining us for Bible and Science.  It was a full classroom but we all kept cool!

Everyone is adjusting beautifully to Pine Ridge.  We are settling into a nice routine and our learning pace is starting to pick up.  This week I started assessing students on their reading and spelling levels.  We also had a blast learning about rocks, reading each day out of our good fit books, going to the library for the first time, writing personal narratives, and learning about the armor of God.  Here is a quick look at our week in pictures. (Many more are on smugmug.)

The class LOVES reading!  We focused on the story elements this week of characters, setting, events, problems and solutions.  We are practicing these elements all together as I read the book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and then the students practice the strategies taught in their good fit books.

We are working at thinking of many different stories for our personal narratives in writing.  Soon we will choose a story that we have a lot of details we can write about.  This week we brainstormed different people and places.

We continued to look at the book of Ephesians in Bible.  We had a great lesson on the armor of God and the importance of putting that armor on every day.  Look at what happens when we keep on the armor as we go through our day and also what happens when we take it off.  The kids loved this visual lesson and we had a great discussion about how God desires for us to walk closely with Him each day.  To do this well, we need to start our day getting ready with Him.  God desires the best for us and wants us to STAND!

In Science we continued to study rocks.  We learned that rocks are made of minerals and also got our rock polishers up and running.  This is a favorite part of the day for many students!

In Math we continue to learn about multiplication and how we make equal groups.  We are drawing a lot of pictures and using manipulatives to help us understand this concept.  We also started to see how multiplication and division are related this week.  We focused specifically on multiplication and division of 5's and 2's.

Upcoming Dates:

• No School Friday, September 4 or Monday, September 7.  Labor Day break.  
• I have created a sign-up genius at the top of this blog for volunteering to help with lunch.  These opportunities are on Wednesdays and are from 11:55-12:20.
• We use our whiteboards and markers every day in Math.  Several students could use a whiteboard eraser as well.  An old sock works great for this!
• Swimming Lessons are September 14-25.  We will be at the pool from 12:35-1:20 each day.
• Homework folders will start coming home the week of September 14.  We will begin reading minutes and Spelling word work that week as well.  
• Walk-a-thon is Wednesday, September 23.  
• No School on Monday, September 28 for a staff development day.

Have a great long weekend!

Lynae