Measuring Mania!

We have been on the lookout for different types of measurements, whether its in magazines, newspapers, online, recipes, or elsewhere.  We realized that measurements are all around us!  We are learning about the different tools used to measure and have been practicing how to use them correctly.  The main tools we will learn about are: ruler, yard stick, meter stick, and tape measure.

The different systems of measurement can be tricky, so Miss Lolling's math class decided that they are like two teams.  One team is the U.S. Customary System, who must keep its players (units) together.  The other team is the Metric System who also must keep all of its similarly named players (units) together.  This seems to be helping the confusion, and almost everyone can identify each system and its units independently!

Creative with "Bossy R"

The iPads have been in our classroom and helping us with the "Bossy R" spelling pattern.  We worked with the app Drawing Pad to spell our Fundations words in colorful and creative ways.  Take a look at some of our awesome spellers....

We are back at it!

Hi everyone!  Sorry we haven't posted in a while, but the days are flying by!  It is very hard to believe that we have started fourth quarter!  Here are a few of the many things we have been up to...

Fundations
    We have been learning about words that have"Bossy R" patterns, multiple syllables, and prefixes. "Bossy R" patterns are those that have a vowel preceding the letter 'r'.  The 'r' becomes bossy and changes the vowels' typical sounds.  We are only practicing 'r' with 'o' and 'a' but will get to the others soon.  Multi-syllabic words have been somewhat challenging.  We continue to practice breaking the words down and spelling them syllable-by-syllable.  It is helping, but practice, practice, practice at home!  Prefixes have been fun to learn about and we are almost experts on them!  We have a few different games/activities we 've played to help practice.  Our unit eight test will be this week.

Reading
We have started genre studies and are having a blast with them!  We have only learned about the biographies, autobiographies, and informational texts so far.  Please peek at the post about genres to learn more!

Writing
Among our "Kid Pick" days, where everyone gets to be an author on whatever he/she chooses, we have been drafting our own autobiographies!  Everyone is very excited about this, since it is all about US!  We do not have to do any researching- just share the good stuff about ourselves.  These stories are going to be published in the computer lab soon, so be on the look out for them at Open House (Be there- April 24th!).

Math
Measuring will be the main topic for the next couple of weeks, because there is A LOT to cover!  The main skills are: customary system, metric system, estimating lengths, measurement story problems, and line plots.  We will learn the different units of the two systems and the comparisons.  Estimating lengths is one of the trickier concepts of the unit.  These skills can easily be practiced at home, so find some fun ways to do so with your child!