Opinion Writing

We've started a new unit in writing, Opinion Writing!  This is where you pick a topic you care a lot about and try to convince others of your views.  We have a graphic organizer to help us that uses the acronym OREO.  O stands for OPINION, first you state your opinion.  R stands for REASON, second you state your reason for your opinion.  E stands for EXAMPLES, next you give three examples to support your opinion and your reason.  The last O stands for OPINION again because you have to restate your opinion again at the end.  This is a great template to help us.  You may be seeing this coming home from time to time.  

We've also become more focused on making sure we have COMPLETE sentences.  Many children are still missing simple things like capital letters and punctuation.  This checklist helps us remember everything.

Biography Research

Mrs. Hunter's class is hard at working researching for our informational writing unit. Each student is writing a biography of a famous person of their choosing. We're using tons of great websites including Myon and KidRex.  Check out our great work!

Valentine's Party

Better late than never!  Here are some pictures from our last party of the year. We had a great time eating, handing out Valentines, and making puppets. Thanks for everyone's help this year in making our parties great. We surely couldn't have done it without you. 

Ecosystems

This week we started a brand new unit in Science, Ecosystems!  We discovered that ecosystems are all of the living things (plants, animals and organisms) in a given area, and how they interact with each other.  To start off our unit we broke ecosystems down into their components (soil, plants, water, fish, worms, and grass) and each group of students had one component.  From their, students did a KWL chart where they listed what they Know, Want to Know, and Learned after doing a little research.  We'll put this knowledge to good use next week when we make our very own ecosystems!!!

Fun with Geography

The past week we had a lot of fun with Geography!  We played a matching game to help us remember vocabulary and a puzzle game to help us learn the states surrounding Missouri.  The goals for our unit were to identify and locate regions, located and label Missouri and its border states on a map and locate several key locations within Missouri.  These games helped to make learning these goals fun.  They are now available for students to play as a choice in the afternoons after work is finished.

A Look at Word Study: Part 2 (practice)

After new words have been assigned in word study, students have 2 weeks to practice them.  This practice is done during Daily 5 and the "Word Study" choice.  Every student has a list of things they must do to practice, these can be found on their weekly menu.  After theses assignments are done they may choose from a list of other spelling activities involving their words.  The consistent  practice for two weeks helps them to learn their patterns.

JA in a Day!

Last Friday was loads of fun!  We participated in JA (Junior Achievement) in a day.  Junior Achievement is an organization that specializes in teaching elementary students about economy, business, and the world around them.  Usually, a Junior Achievement volunteer comes once a week for 6 weeks to teach us a unit.  This year we decided to do it all in one day (hence the title. :))  Our unit was called "Our Community."  In it we learned about community zones, ways to make payments, how businesses are run, and different forms of communication.  Our teacher was Mrs. Jennifer Peck.  We had a great time!