Today we had a nice talk about why authors often use bridges as metaphors for working together and for friendship.  I heard students say that authors use bridges because bridges connect things, you can walk across a bridge to get to people at any time you want, and that bridges are like friendships (sometimes long, sometimes short, sometimes strong like a freeway overpass, and sometimes weak like a rope bridge).

We took our final test on multiplication.  Over the next couple of days we will be talking about division. 

Tomorrow we will have a guest teacher for the second half of the day.  I will be in the building, but I will be doing some professional development with some colleagues.

I was in a toy store this weekend looking for a gift, and I came across some GREAT math board games that we learned in class today.  One is called Pie in the Sky.  It is a fractions game that focuses on equivalent fractions.  The other one is called Mathable.  It is similar to Scrabble, but it uses math equations.

We talked today about what current events means, and some current events in the news right now.  We then read an article from Time for Kids about how bugs might be the food of the future.

Yesterday we learned a little more about the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  I was very proud of the thoughtful discussions that these kids were able to have about his life and his contributions to our nation.

Today we read a story and graphed the plot using our personal level of engagement.  We also practiced what we learned yesterday about three digit by one digit multiplication with regrouping (357x6).

We still need practice on our multiplication math facts!

Today we talked for a while about why it is important for us to learn about the sadder parts of our nation's history.  We talked about how we can learn from the mistakes of the past to keep our future safe and bright.  Have a good MLK holiday.

We are moving into the concept of multi-digit multiplication now.  It is a difficult concept, and takes some practice.  Yesterday we began with the idea that if you know what 2x4 is, then you can do 20x4, or 200x4  just as easily.  Today we started working with two digit by one digit multiplication (without regrouping).  So we did problems like 23x3, and 42x3.  The goal here is for students not only to understand how to solve that problem, but also to understand why you are multiplying the ones by 3 and then the tens by 3.  Understanding the concept will help them when we move into multiplying with regrouping!

We are going to be building a tribal village as well as some totem poles in the coming weeks.  If you have any pipe cleaners, felt pieces, paper towel rolls, or Popsicle sticks around the house that you could donate to our learning process I would greatly appreciate it! 

We are working hard in our leveled reading groups, and covering a lot of math concepts lately. At this point in the year it is very important to know our addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division facts like the backs of our hands!

We are also practicing our communication and problem solving skills in our social studies unit on Early Northwest Coastal People.  In order to complete this unit we need to be able to work well as a group.  The better each clan does of working together, the more successful that clan will be in our tribe. 

We are working our way into division now!  We are using multiplication facts that we know to help us divide.

We are working in fiction texts now for reading.  We are talking a lot about characters, setting, problem and solution, and main events.  If your child is reading chapter books with complex characters, it is great practice to analyze those characters with them.  One great thing to talk with them about is how characters change over the course of a book.  Complex chapter books usually have characters that learn and grow from the experiences that they have in the book.  Pointing out the lessons and growth of the characters is wonderful practice for advanced readers.  It is also great to talk about what steps a character takes to solve his/her problem.

Happy Friday!

Next week we will be continuing our work with multiplication facts.  One of the skills we are practicing is using what you already know to help you find answers to more difficult problems.  For example, 6 x 12 can be hard to remember, but if you know that 6x2=12 and 6x10=60, then you add them together to get 6x12=72. 

We have also been talking a lot about character traits and settings.  Knowing the difference between physical characteristics and personality traits seems to be our challenge area.

Happy New Year!  Here is a brief description of what we are going to be working on in the beginning of the New Year.

Tomorrow is the beginning of the PTA's Box Top competition.  Please don't forget to bring in those box tops and labels for education!  I know it takes a bit of time, but it really does help our school out a lot!

Today we began our unit on fiction in reading.  Over the next few days we are going to be working on identifying character traits and physical characteristics.  We are also going to be using the character traits we identify in order to make predictions about character actions.  We will also be looking at how characters change over time.  Then we will be fine tuning our skills at finding main events.  We will also be looking at settings.  We are going to spend a nice long chunk of time talking about main ideas and finding the moral of stories. 

We also began our new read aloud Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat by Lynne Jonell.  I know kids get excited about this book and want to start reading it at home, but I would really appreciate it if they didn't.  Reading our read aloud ahead takes away from our enjoyment and learning opportunity.  We have a separate read aloud for reading group time.  It is The BFG by Roald Dahl.  We will be using these read aloud books to support our work on fiction texts.

We are working on multiplication now.  We are going to be using numberlines, array models, and area models to represent multiplication facts for 6's, 7's, 8's, and 9's.  In addition to multiplication we are going to be learning about bar graphs, pictographs, and line plots.  We are also going to be looking into area, perimeter, and 3 dimensional shapes. 

We will also continue to look into the culture of Early Northwest Coastal People, learning about how to stay healthy be reading The Great Body Shop, practicing non-fiction texts and learning about current events with Time for Kids, and learning about the Science of Sound.

I know it sounds like a lot of information to cover over the next few weeks, but we can do it!  Remember that every day of school counts, and we have so much to cover that missing days leaves students feeling behind and confused.  Stay healthy!

I look forward to starting off my new year with you guys!