This week we began reading books together about famous musicians: Tito Puente: Mambo King by Monica Brown and Duke Ellington by Andrea Davis Pinkney. We learned about Tito Puente and the many percussion, brass, string, and keys instruments in his latin band. We watched a couple of short videos to hear him play the timbales too! Then we learned about Duke Ellington and his career as a jazz piano player. We learned about some other musicians who played brass, string and percussion instruments in his orchestra. We watched a clip of Duke Ellington's Orchestra too.
Check out this fun clip of Tito Puente on Sesame Street!
The Duke Ellington Orchestra plays "Take the A Train"
We also read one last book on light, Me and my Shadow: A Book About Light, to go along with a math/science lesson on measuring cube tower shadows. Pairs of students made 1 tower and used flashlights and experiments with this source of light to see how they could change the shadows to make them long or short, wide or thin. They used inch tiles to measure the shadows.
Many writers are finishing their first teaching books. They used a checklist to see if they had all the parts they need to teach the readers about a topic in their book. This week we focused on writing precise words--using the vocabulary your topic needs. We practice spelling out long words by syllable to help us break down challenging words. We also looked in non-fiction books for good beginnings to get us interested in the topic and good endings to help wrap up our learning.
In math we continue our measurement unit. This week we're measuring sets of paper fish using inch tiles. Students are working on being more accurate. Noticing if a fish is exactly 5 inches or maybe in between 4 and 5 inches long. We practiced building and writing numbers between 100 and 120. We also practiced being math detectives and noticing what the pattern is counting by in order to fill in the appropriate numbers.
For example:
5, 10, 15, __, __, __. OR 2, 4, 6, __, __, __. OR 82, 81, 80, __, __, __. OR 4, 14, 24, __, __, __. OR 5, 7, 9, __, __, __. OR 70, 80, 90, __, __, __.
On Wednesday our class filled our HEART jar! We celebrated with a hot wheels car/origami celebration on Thursday. Students shared cars brought in to play with. Others did an origami activity with me. It was a great time!
We will have Library on Monday. Please send in any library books you have at home! Mr. Gile's schedule has changed so starting in February we will have library every Monday afternoon! We love checking out new books and hearing Mr. Gile read to us. He uses so many fun voices and hears our many "noticings" about the stories and illustrations.
We've had a lot of sick kids this week--sore throats, tummy bugs, and head aches. Please keep an eye on how your child is feeling. Drink plenty of water and get some rest this weekend!
Dates to Remember:
Monday January 22 - Library 2:10-2:40
Friday February 9 - field trip to the Flynn Theater
Wednesday February 14 - Early Dismissal 12:15 -- Teacher In-Service -- No After school Programs, all students dismissed at 12:15
Monday February 26 - Tuesday March 6 - Winter Break (3/5 and 3/6 are Teacher In-Service days)
Wednesday March 7 - school resumes
Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox
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