Going Batty

     This week's theme is bats.  We have read Stellaluna by Janell Cannon and Bats by Gail Gibbons so far.  We were able to learn great facts about bats in each although they are very different.  One is fiction and the other is nonfiction.  Ask your child to tell you about them? 

     The author used lots of strong verbs in Stellaluna.  She did a great job picking verbs that really painted a picture for the readers.  We charted some of them on a chart and we wrote our own sentences using them.  I'm hoping we will retire some weak verbs and start using strong ones in our writing. 

     Students sorted sentences about bats into two categories, fact and opinion.  They followed that up by making a bat, with a fact on one wing and an opinion on the other.

     Students also started reading Horrible Harry in 2B.  Harry has done, or tried to do, some horrible things.  His Stub People didn't work out as he planned.  So far Harry is bad news. 

     In Vampires Don't Wear Polka-Dots, Melonie and Eddie just broke into Mrs. Jeepers house to see what is in the box down in the basement.  We have our ideas on what it could be.   This is a Bailey School Kid book.  There are lots of other similar titles to check out if your child seems interested.

     I hope students are practicing math facts with their magic hats at home.  Extra math is a great way to practice them as well.  Today we got into groups to count out 100 mosquitos.  Lots of different strategies were used by the groups.  Here's why we did that.

A bat can eat 600 mosquitos an hour.

     We also created some fact families.

Candy corn fact families

     Mrs. Maloney delivered our new rug on Tuesday.  It's a map of the continents and very cool.  We love it.  I have lots of pictures to post to edline but it's just doesn't seem to be cooperating with me.  Check in often and hopefully our rug pictures will be posted. 

   

   

Kevin Henkes and Spiders

     Last week we read quite a few Kevin Henkes books, made predictions and compared characters.  This week are are all about spiders.  We have learned so many spider facts and realized that we had some misconceptions about spiders.  We will read a fiction story or two about Anansi the spider later this week.  He's such a trickster.  Wait until you see what he does to his friends.

     Sentences need capitalization and punctuation.  We KNOW that, although forget quite a bit.  We have been identifying and sorting different sentence types and should be masters by now.  Students have also been solving math word problems like crazy.  They are tricky but we will not give up.

    
     Half of us are publishing our writing.  Which means it's been edited and they are copying it over to a neat sheet.  I haven't had a chance to meet with everyone yet but hopefully I will by the end of the week.  BUSY BUSY BUSY

     Monday the PTO treated us to an ANTI-BULLY magic show.  Very fun!!