Students were reminded about choosing good fit books, which are books that have words that are not too hard or too easy, interesting topics, and with purpose. Students began to choose several books to place into their new reading bags. After rereading the books a few times, students are able to switch books from our classroom library. In week 2, students continued to increase their read to self stamina. We discussed what we are doing well and what we still need to improve as a class of readers. Ms. Ratha also visited our class to read a book called, One by Kathryn Otoshi. We started talking about short vowel sounds (a,e,i,o,u). Students reviewed the sounds and identified words that have them. Then students practiced by highlighted short vowel words and sorting words into different vowel groups.
Math
Students studied the school day numbers by writing and illustrating representations of the specific digit into their math journals. Our goal is to do this math practice daily until the 100th day of school. So far, we are on Day 9 in the math journals. Students have used pennies, a nickel, dollar bills, base ten blocks, number words and more to represent the digits. They also explored around the classroom for more representations. We have also talked about various 2D shapes which you can see in our current Fruit Critique project.
Writing
Students started to free write in their writing journals. We talked about our summer fun and they chose one event to illustrate and write a sentence about. Students then created a sun diagram where they wrote about four different events from their summer vacation. Students reviewed correct letter writing by practicing spelling their first name as well as all classmates' first names in their alphabet book. They traced and colored in the shape of each letter. In the second week of school, students continued to complete their alphabet book of names and other words. They also practiced writing short vowel words that they highlighted into the correct category of vowel groups.
Project Work
Students went outside on campus to explore nature with their senses. They sketched and labeled their observations into their journals. This will help prepare students for their exploration and sight recordings at their fieldwork to Liberty Station and the Miramar Airshow. Then students shared their discovery sketches to the class.