In math, we continued learning about measurement and transitioned from using non-standard units like crayons and unifix cubes to using standard units like inches and centimeters. I used several of the activities from Primary Junction’s Measurement Unit again this week and I can’t recommend it enough! They completed the “worksheet” below which I used as a simple formative assessment to see how well my kids understood using a ruler to measure with inches.
After introducing centimeters on Wednesday, I had them practice measuring their heads, necks, legs, etc. using centimeters and inches. I pulled this resource from Amy Lemon’s I Can Measure unit and they LOVED it . They were so engaged and worked so hard with their partners to get the correct measurements.
On Friday, I introduced finding the length difference between two objects. After talking about strategies they could use to figure out the difference, we “transformed” our classroom into a zoo (this idea also came from Primary Junction’s Measurement Unit). They each received a zookeeper “ID badge” and rotated through 10 animal research stations. Each station had a pair of animals and they had to figure out the height difference between the two. They requested to listen to The Lion King’s
soundtrack so that’s exactly what we did to set the mood of the atmosphere. :)
In language, we dove into learning about shades of meaning in verbs and adjectives. We started by talking about how there are some words that are nearly the same (like synonyms!), but when you look closely you will see how they are different.
We practiced sorting words in lots of ways. They used the ActivBoard. They rotated through shades of meaning stations. They used the children’s dictionaries to help them come up with their own words to sort. Etc.
In reading, we used The Day the Crayons Quit and A Bad Case of Stripes as our main books for the week. We started off with The Day the Crayons Quit and they go bananas for this book. We created an anchor chart to describe the character traits of six of the crayons in the book. They used it to complete a venn diagram to compare and contrast the red and blue crayons.
On Wednesday, we read it again, but this time we used it to talk about writing opinion pieces. They wrote about whether or not they believed the crayons had valid reasons to quit. My kids who finished early got to pretend they were Duncan and write a letter back to one of the crayons. These were the cutest!
On Thursday and Friday, we switched gears to reading A Bad Case of Stripes and used it to learn about cause and effect and theme. We watched a BrainPop Jr. video and talked about identifying cause and effect in everyday life before we started reading. They had to apply their new skills to look for examples of cause and effect in the book once we started reading. I also snagged a cause and effect freebie from Primarily Speaking (get it here!) that worked perfectly with my kids.
I love, love, love reading out loud with my kids! It doesn't hurt that one of my girls said, “Ms. Shepherd, I love how you read with a lot of expression!” either. Love it!
Enjoy your weekend!
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