How the time goes when you are having fun!

As the last couple weeks have passed, we have really been in a groove.  Students are really hitting their stride during our writing time.  All students have been achieving our goal of producing lots of writing, and the quality that they have been producing is fantastic!  We will be starting a new writing unit next week.  This unit will focus on writing to state and show opinion...get ready for some strong evidence and convincing coming your way!

We have also continued our work studying human body systems.  We collected data on the amount of air we can hold in our lungs, and graphed with in relation to the duration that we could hold our breath doing different activities.  While this was not necessarily the most credible data ever collected it gave us some very interesting results to discuss.  This work was also valuable as it gave us time to practice with the scientific method, collect and review data, and refine some of our analysis skills.

Math has been going quickly.  Each day our hour seems shorter.  We have two groups currently working in math, one is focused on fractions, and the other on foundation facts.  Our foundation facts group is working to build automaticity with the foundation facts in multiplication, and our fractions group is working on understanding how fractions interact with one another, and with whole numbers.

Our reader's workshop time has also been interesting.  We have worked really hard on the difference and use of figurative and literal language.  It is amazing how astute and observant these students are during our read alouds.  We have just recently switched our focus to be on the point of view stories are told by, and we are currently finishing up the first person account of Sam Gribley!

I look forward to seeing all of you next week for our conferences.  I have been sending home hard copies, and there is a page tab on the top of this blog with the conference schedule as well.  If you still wish to have a conference and don't see you student's name on the schedule, please let me know so we can get one scheduled.