Saturday, March 23, 2013

Tens and Ones...Compare and Contrast...



This week the students have been working hard at decomposing and composing numbers into groups of tens and ones.  We have been “counting on” from our group of ten so it’s faster!  Instead of counting each dot by itself up to ten, we can recognize that there is a group of ten, and “count on” from there.  Check out the videos of students doing a great job, decomposing numbers into groups of tens and ones and “counting on” to see what we have altogether.  The students have a solid foundation that one group of ten is made up of ten ones. 



For Literacy Workshop, we have been diligently practicing our skills of comparing and contrasting!  Students have been analyzing posters and texts to find “signal” words that let us know that we are comparing how things are alike.  For example, the words “too and both” can signal to good readers that the author is comparing how two things are alike.  The cat and dog BOTH have four legs.  The word BOTH signals to the reader (DING! DING! DING! In our heads!)  that the author is comparing!  There are also “signal” words for when the author is trying to contrast something.  It could be two items, it could be a feeling, etc.  The words “but, and while” can signal that the author is trying to show a difference in two things or feelings.  Some homes are small, WHILE other homes are big.  The word “WHILE” signals good readers that the author is trying to contrast and show a difference in two things.


Students then spent the last half of our Literacy time, creating 2 or 3 sentences that either compare or contrast any two topics of their choice.  Some of the students’ responses were, “I like chocolate chip cookies, BUT I like oatmeal cookies even more.”  “Lions and Tigers are both carnivores, but they can live in different habitats.”  “Grace is my friend.  Chloe is my friend, too.”  Etc. (Obviously the spelling was a little different than I wrote them, but they weren’t too far off!)  


Students enjoying some fun friday time!  

I wanted to extend a thank you to all of those who were able to come to the Open House.  It was so great to see how excited the students were to show everyone all of their hard work!  Thank you!

P.S. "I added some old "inferring" videos to the previous blog that I wasn't able to add earlier!  Check em' out!



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