THE WEEK OF NOVEMBER 2ND:
CHECK OUT OUR PICTURES TAKEN ON THE DAY OF OUR HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR AND THE
PICTURES TAKEN ON THE DAY WE CELEBRATED HALLOWEEN!!!
Annie's birthday picture is now on our birthday page!
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 2ND:
We began our morning by sharing Caroline and Francesco's Star of the Week
Posters. We finally got a chance to read more of THE LITTLE LEFTOVER WITCH.
Today Itchabody's tail got frozen in the grocery store freezer caae. The
Doons got a permit to keep Felina until next Halloween. Felina learned to
read and Grandfather Doon gave Felina his birthday since she didn't have one!
We wrote in our journals about our Halloween Spooktacular, parade, and party
and about Trick or Treating. Those who finished worked on completing their
Wild Things or Pumpkinhead projects. Others are working on their Halloween
math packets. We went over our spelling words and completed the two workpages
for this week's lesson. We worked on our phonics, Marta, and language. We did
the next Math Minute. We had art with Mrs. Zueck. We read a non fiction
piece about nocturnal animals in our Discoveries Reader. After going over
story vocabulary words such as expert, nocture, and exhausted, we read THE
GREAT HAMSTER HUNT in our Adventures Reader. We learned that hamsters are
nocturnal animals. We celebrated Annie's birthday with yummy homemade
cupcakes. We had a wonderful ORFF class with Mrs. Cantagallo. We talked about
All Saints Day, All Souls Day, and St. Martin de Porres whose feast day is
tomorrow. Happy Grams were given out for those students who showed good
behavior in October. Two prizes were raffled and everyone else received an
autumn pencil. Wouldn't it be great if all 256 Kids could be part of our
November Good Behavior Club raffle???
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3RD:
It was another busy day for 256 Kids. We finished reading THE LITTLE
LEFTOVER WITCH. Felina was adopted by the Doon family and changed her name
to Mary Lucinda George Doon! Our postcards are now ready to mail to all the
classrooms across the country in our exchange. We received one from Montana
and one from Tennessee. We began coloring our map of the U.S.A. by coloring
those two states, our own state and Lake Michigan, and New York, our penpals'
state. We started writing a letter to God to tell Him all the reasons we
feel thankful. We hope to finish them tomorrow and put them on our Prayer
Board. We worked in our spellers and on Marta, phonics, and language. We
shared the first story ever written about Henry and Mudge. It told just how
Henry happened to get Mudge for a pet. We read the next story in our
Adventures Reader, HENRY AND MUDGE AND THE STARRY NIGHT by Cynthia Rylant,
after we watched a vocabulary powerpoint and learned a bit about the author
and illustrator. We played some camping games called Telephone, Campfire
Telephone, and Rainmaker. We did a couple vocabulary checks which we checked
together. We had Spanish...today we learned the numbers thirty, forty,
fifty, sixty, and seventy. We ended our morning with gym. In the afternoon,
we worked on the next Math Minute and on mentally adding on 2,3,4. 20,30, 40,
50, or 60...for example: plus 40 15 plus 40 = 55, 25 plus 40 = 65, 35 plus
40 =75, and 45 plus 40 = 85. This was a difficult concept for many. We also
did some Mad Minutes in addition and subtraction. We also played I HAVE, WHO
HAS. In Religion, we read Chapter Six in our Reconciliation Book. We ended
with the Prayer Service. Next we read our Scholastic News about the
Pilgrims. We did a timeline about them. We went online to scholastic.com to
begin their great unit about Pilgrims and their voyage on the Mayflower,
their daily life in America, the Indians that helped them, and the First
Thanksgiving. Today we concentrated on their daily life...their homes, their
clothing, the food they ate, their learning, and the games they played. We
did a follow the direction paper where we designed the inside of their home.
We had visitors from the Evaluation Team during Religion and Social Studies.
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4th:
We began our morning with the pretest and practice dictation. Most of the
class did a great job checking their words and sentences. We listened to the
CD of HENRY AND MUDGE AND THE STARRY NIGHT. We took our reading tests on the
story vocabulary and comprehension. They will be sent home in tomorrow's
Thursday Folder. Everyone took and passed the accelerated reading test on
the story. We worked with a partner on various story activities. We are
still trying to finish our November letters to the Lord, but most of them are
written and just need to be decorated. Today's project was to write a what
happened the next morning, our own original addition to the Henry and Mudge
camping story. Some 256 Kids have already completed their stories and their
illustrations. They have gone on to many different projects about Henry and
his dog, Mudge. We had a visitor from the Evaluation Team in our classroom
and a visitor in the computer lab. In the afternoon, we worked on a pretest
to see just how many of us know when we need to regroup (carry). We've been
working on the concept in our Math Minutes. The scores will not count because
Mrs. S. was just exploring. This is what she found: one third of the class
was able to figure out the difference between a "baby" problem (22 plus 44)
and a problem that requires regrouping (27 plus 44),about one third is close
to understanding, and the last third will need lots of practice. This paper
and a November Book Report (due Nov. 20th) will be in the Thursday Folder.
We completed our stories and activities about Jesus' Parable of the Prodigal
Son. We read a modern day version of this story about a twelve year old boy
who ran away from home, but was welcomed back by his father and mother. We
went to the library to check out new books. We began our next Alex book,
PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SECRETS.
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 5TH:
Our special Prayers of Thanksgiving are all completed. We reworked some math
problems with and without regrouping in addition. All but four of our Henry
and Mudge stories are completed. Some of us even finished two pages in
their "Bare" Books. We will be working in the books tomorrow. We get to
write about Mrs. S. and we get to write a letter from Mrs. S. to our parents
about us! We worked together on kn words in phonics, the next Marta, on
language, and on a Math Minute. We read HEY, AL and THE DAY JIMMY'S BOA ATE
THE WASH, two great pet stories. We figured out a very difficult puzzle
about Al and his dog, Eddie, who almost were turned into birds! We worked on
some activities about Jimmy's Boa and took the accelerated reading test on
the story. We ended our morning with a SEVEN SMILE MUSIC CLASS! In the
afternoon, we read the first four chapters of THANKSGIVING ON THURSDAY, a
Magic TreeHouse book. We are working on chapter reviews. We had Social
Studies with Mrs. Barr. We are learning about Native Americans. We worked
in cooperative groups of three. Mrs. Barr said we did a very good job!
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6th:
We took our spelling and dictation test. They were graded and returned.
Everyone did a great job this week on the words, dictation, and on composing
their own sentences. We went to Mass. Father Trout was our celebrant.
Everyone was on their best behavior in church. When I came back to the pew
after being an Eucharistic Minister, the class was singing like a chorus of
angels!!! We took a five minute playground break and then took our quarterly
math test. Most of the class scored between a V and an E-. These were
graded, fixed by the kids, and returned. This test required careful reading.
We worked on our Henry and Mudge stories, in our "Bare" Books, or on extra
Henry and Mudge projects. Nikki's Mom took small groups into the hall to
read HENRY AND MUDGE AND THE HAPPY CAT. She also took everybody out to
practice addition of two place numbers with and without regrouping. After
recess and lunch, we had gym with Mrs. Olson. We then read the first chapter
in our Welcome Home Reconciliation Book and watched the first episode of the
Oak St. Flyers video. We'll do another on Monday. We went over our Chapter
Three and Four Review sheets for THANKSGIVING ON THURSDAY. We will read more
of the book on Monday. We read the next two chapters in our Alex book,
PEANUT BUTTER AND JELLY SECRETS. Some of us went to Mrs. Barr's room to
catch up on our stories and or "Bare" Books while the rest of us watched an
Encyclopedia Brown mystery.
Enjoy your weekend! See you all on Monday!
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