Welcome back, Beta fam! We hope that you all had joyful and relaxing winter breaks. Y’all are in for an exciting quarter as we embark on our journey west. Adventure awaits!
Math
What time is it?! MATH time! Ms.Kelly’s math group kicked off their week with a quick review of time to the nearest hour and half hour before leaping into time to the nearest minute. The kiddos warmed their brains up with a partner activity that required taking turns spinning a time and drawing the hands on the clock, partners needed to check their work before taking the next turn. These Betas sure do love a challenge, in between telling time, they were asked how many ways can they create addition sentences to 10, using numbers, words, and pictures. They ended their week by tackling time to the :15 and :45 with partners and then independently! Time flies when you’re having fun!
Ms. Skylar’s math group spent Monday and Tuesday reviewing Unit 3 to prepare for their end of unit assessment. They took the first half on Wednesday and the remainder on Thursday. This unit on multiplication and division was TOUGH, our hardest one yet, but that didn;t hold anyone back – they all did such an awesome job staying focused and persevering through the challenging parts! We are so proud of them and are excited to dive a little deeper into the wonderful world of multiplication and division in this next unit. Fantastic job, mathematicians!
Literacy
It has been so nice getting back into the swing of things – and with our dedicated readers and writers, it was like no time had passed, everyone knew what they needed to do and got right down to business practicing their new spelling patterns and reading their book club books. We’ve conquered nouns, verbs, adjectives and now pronouns – we hunt for them everywhere, but especially in our morning messages.
Our Westward Expansion theme lends quite well to our new reading and writing focus, Tall Tales! The kiddos learned about two super cool characters who go by the names of Paul Bunyan and Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirwhild Crockett and read their famous fictional stories and non-fiction pieces that talk about the folks who inspired the tales. We analyzed the stories for the main character, superhuman powers, true facts, exaggerated details, problems and solutions – we even mapped their origins on a U.S. map. The kids are SO excited to “meet” the next cast of characters and begin writing their very own Tall Tales in the coming weeks!
Theme
New theme alert! We are headed west in covered wagons on a quest for rich farmland and a more prosperous life! We kicked off theme with a discussion about “good deals”. Is it a good deal to sell an old crayon for $100? How about an iPhone for 4 cents? We learned that the President made a really good deal with the French when he purchased the Louisiana Territory for $15 million dollars, that’s just 4 cents per acre, a steal! The U.S. had doubled in size and the purchase allowed people to travel to this new frontier!
As a class we mapped what the U.S. looked like in the year 1803, created a timeline of the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, and listed all 15 states that we acquired. So much new land and we knew nothing about it…until Lewis and Clark set out on their expedition and teamed up with their incredibly knowledgeable guide, Sacagawea. Can’t wait to begin our travels, but first we must pack for our very long journey. Oregon or Bust!! We are also enjoying our new read aloud, “Bound For Oregon” by Jean Van Leeuwen.
