Week 20 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! It was a shorter week and we did do a Thoughtful Thursday project (as pictured above) but Mrs. Doran has had some issues with her computer so the video is not ready at this time. The good news is we did the project a little early so it will be done prior to Valentine's Day which is when this project will need to be done by. Stay tuned!

We did not have school on Monday but WL had a great event at WLN where there was free food, displays and more. We hope you were able to attend!

Most of us have now finished up the math iReady diagnostic. We are really in need of headphones as we had a few more break this week, so if we do not have our own please consider buying some. Similarly, if you have any extra at home that you no longer use that you could donate, we would be grateful.

We finished our read aloud called "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" as well as a traveling journal we did to go along with the book. The end was very moving and many of us cried (including Mrs. D., which may have added to our tears). We are learning that great books can make you laugh, cry, be scared, and more. We can't wait to start our new book on Monday!

This week we reviewed the many strategies that we have learned to help us solve problems in math. Sometimes solving a problem in two ways is a great way to see that we got the problem correct. Next week we will take our Unit 5 Math Assessment. A review will come home on Monday. Also don't forget to keep those math month items coming in!

In our writing unit we are working on writing like a scientist. This unit is great for us this time of year because we also just got our science kits. To start our writing we started with a question and then made a hypothesis.

After we made our hypothesis it was time to test it. We all planted our own Brassica seeds. Some put their seeds under an artificial light and others opted for sunlight through the window. We can't wait to see what happens. As scientists we also wrote about the materials needed to conduct our experiment as well as the procedure.

On Friday we were so excited to have Alton's mom come and read to us. She read a great book and really really enjoyed us. We all know her because she is one of our amazing Motor Moms. Thank you so much for coming in.

Also Friday after school the PTA put on an Awesome Winter Family Fun Night! Their hard work was evident and a fun time was had by all! Thank you to all who donated items to our basket as well as to Ashton's mom who put all the items together making it look fabulous! Have a wonderful week!

Week 19 in Review

Greetings from Room 119! This week we lifted up Joy who is battling breast cancer. You can see the project we made for her by clicking HERE. If you know someone who could benefit from some encouragement, email Mrs. Doran and she'll tell you what she needs in order to do the project.

This week we did our reading iReady Assessment over the course of the week. Next week we'll be doing our math iReady Assessment. Please send in headphones if you have them, we had another few sets break this week.

We finished the Mercy Watson series and Mrs. Doran is reading us one book from the next series with the same characters called "Leroy Ninker Saddles Up" by Kate Dicamillo. The Mercy books are very different from Edward Tulane which we are reading now. Authors write for different purposes and different audiences. We love our reading time where we can try out and choose books that are just right for us.

As we finish up our opinion writing, we thought it would be fun to reflect on the "Mercy" books we read and choose our favorite book. We again had to support our opinions with reasons and examples. The majority of our class wrote pieces supporting "Mercy Watson: Something Wonky this Way Comes" though all supported their opinions with reasons and examples. Our opinion writing pieces will be coming home soon and we will move into nonfiction writing and lab reports.

In math we loved learning about arrays, which is a strategy to help us solve multiplication problems and repeat addition. We also learned some more strategies to help us add - like the open number line. We love math! We have been working on subtraction every Friday as well for Math Month. Don't forget to do those math packets so we can earn more snowballs!

We've been learning about goods and services and the differences between the two. We took a pre and post learning test and realized we really have learned a lot about this topic. It's fun to discover new things that we didn't know about before.

On Friday we finished the week with a special Mystery Reader. Cameron's mom came in and read us an awesome hockey story which was perfect for our hockey-playing friend. She did a great job and we loved the book!

Just a reminder that there will be no school on Monday, January 20th, as we observe the Martin Luther King holiday. We hope you will join us at Walled Lake Northern on Monday for free food and festivities beginning at 5:00pm. You can click HERE to learn more.

Week 18 in Review

Greetings from Room 119 and Happy New Year!! We are already back in the groove after a nice break and will be taking the iReady Assessment next week. Please send in headphones if you haven't already (the sets Mrs. D. has aren't the best) and do some practice lessons by logging in HERE.

This week, we lifted up the dad of a Room 119 friend. You can check out that project by clicking HERE.

We started a new read-aloud by Kate Dicamillo called "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" and are reading another series by her about a pig called Mercy Watson. Many of us are really enjoying that series too and enjoy reading them ourselves. We continue to work on fluency.

Our Opinion Writing Pieces continue to improve. We are getting more solid with the organization of the pieces and including more and better reasons and examples to support our opinions. Mrs. D. is also excited that many of us are becoming better editors and actually celebrating finding MORE mistakes in our writing because it means we see them and are fixing them! We love writing!

In math this week we have been working with money and how to make change by counting up. Making change can be tough so we've walked through a lot of this together. We used counting up as a strategy for subtraction too, which goes along with our Math Month goal! Thank you to all who are sending in those things to get us snowballs! A cocoa party sure sounds nice!

We ended our week with a special Mystery Reader! Memphis was so excited to see that his mom was our mystery reader and she read us a great book! You can see his reaction on a video that was posted to our class facebook page.

Have a great week!