Writing Summaries and Place Value!

Greetings Friends! What an energetic Wednesday it was today! Wow! Kaela started our day with the koosh toss greeting, the Chicken Lips song, and the clothespin game (doubles, our new favorite way to play)! Great job Kaela! We used our spelling words to reinforce our word study principle: consonant blends. We stretched our learning to include context (meaning), antonyms (opposites), and categorizing. We also took turns reading our spelling words in character (rock star, opera singer, army Sargent, angry parent, winy baby, you get it). FUN! In writing we read a very compelling story called Yo! Yes? by Chris Raschka. We talked about the elements in the story (character, setting, plot, ending) and payed close attention to the two characters. We tried writing our very own summaries today, a first time for many. We all agreed, that we did a pretty good job for our first try, and will have a lot more practice writing summaries in second grade. Well done writers!
In the afternoon, we learned a new place value game called High, Low, Middle! Taking 3 cards from the deck, we arranged them in different places (yes, we put the "place" in place value) to make the highest number and the lowest number. We also stretched our thinking to come up with numbers in the middle... sometimes more than one, or two, or even 3 numbers were possible! Great mathematical thinking along with number sense and great practice! We'll do much more with place value and play many more games to reinforce our learning! Well done friends! We read the next chapter in Frindle and learned about a new character in the story, Mrs. Granger. We're not quite sure how we feel about her yet. We all agree she's strict (which can be good for helping you learn, according to Harrison), but she might seem a little mean (according to Julienne). We'll learn more tomorrow, as Mrs. Granger and Nick Allen get to know each other in class.
Our afternoon on work board was a little frenetic and maybe even chatty. We all agreed that we will put in more effort and try harder tomorrow, not only doing our work, but keeping our classroom a quiet, productive work place! Library tomorrow, remember to bring in your books so you can check out new ones!