Clowning Around

Spelling- Today, we discussed all of the special sounds and spellings in List 18. We played the quiet/loud game as we reviewed the list. As you can imagine, they like spelling them LOUD the best! The kids also wrote some of the more difficult words in cursive. I am being very picky with these, but they have already shown so much progress with their handwriting! Focusing on each letter is sure to help those spelling words stick!

Poetry-  The kids worked together in groups today, listening to each others' poetry recitations and checking it against the written poem. I think this was a great way to practice. They helped each other with any words that may have been left out or changed... and enjoyed it!

Grammar- We went over the worksheets from home, making any corrections and discussing it along the way. After our review, we learned about “predicate adjectives” today. Predicate adjectives are adjectives that follow the verb but that describe the subject. For instance, in the sentence “The sun is hot.”, the word “hot” is an adjective that describes the subject “sun”. It follows a linking verb, but it is not a noun or pronoun... therefore, it cannot be a predicate nominative. This is a predicate adjective! We diagram it the same way as a predicate nominative, on the line beside the verbs, but behind a slanted line.

Math- We worked on some really hard word problems today! These word problems had more than one step to them, and they really taught the kids to read carefully! Here is an example of a problem that we learned to do: “Bob has a pole that is 3 m long. He has a rope that is 8 times as long as the pole. If the rope was divided into four equal parts, how long would each part be?” We worked through how to set up multiplication and division word problems last week. Now, the students are doing a great job taking it to a new level!

Social Studies- Mr. Dennis lead the kids through a lesson on the middle colonies. They discussed William Penn and the founding of Pennsylvania. Key words from this lesson include: treaty, intolerance, proprietor, and representatives. They also made a flow chart of information on New York and New Jersey's governments.

Writing- I met with each student individually and discussed the progress they are making on their “Pay It Forward” papers. I can tell that each of them will definitely be able to meet the challenge of writing three paragraphs papers this semester. We will work on making all corrections and finishing the final copies at home... and share them with Ms. Sharon on Thursday!

Art- There was a lot of clowning around today! Ms. Nancy taught the kids about mosaics today. The kids created clown pictures using torn bits of construction paper. And, as I said, did a lot of clowning around!

Music-The kids did their "popcorn" game with music flashcards.  After a great review of music notes and symbols, they worked on playing their new song, "In the Morning".