Math Switch/Collaboration

Something new we are trying with this math unit is to collaborate with Mrs. Bolyard and split the kiddos based on ability/pre-test. About 14-15 kiddos from our class and 10ish from her class showed proficiency of this math unit: fractions multiplied by whole numbers. So, I'm taking the group that doesn't need the instruction of this unit and Mrs. Bolyard will be teaching the unit to those that need the instruction. It's not a high/low separation~it's a "this group needs instruction on multiplication of fractions with whole numbers" and this group doesn't. If we continue to have high numbers of proficiency with pre-tests, we can look at doing this again but it will always depend on the pre-test.

We had 2 birthdays today and they were both of our newer students! After discussing this in our morning meeting and while waiting on Pryce to log in to share his kahoot! with us, we shared some funny faces or special tricks we can do. In Math Workshop, my group worked on an Exemplar (real world problem) and sharing our thinking on a poster for a gallery walk on Thursday and those in Mrs. Bolyard's class, completed problems and shared their thinking on posters too! After Art, lunch and OUTDOOR (finally!) recess, we continued to switch things up by doing Science. We have now solidified our understanding that objects don't produce heat by completing our experiment with wood, wool, metal and glass and discussed why we felt the way we did which led to insulators and conductors. We then, developed our experiment for which material we feel will be the best insulator. In A Night Divided, Gerta found mud on her friend's boots and thinks that she knows about the tunnel and will turn her in! Meanwhile, Mama found them at the tunnel and has decided to help them to complete it and get her family back together! We read independently and then continued our work with figurative language. They are having the most difficulty with similes, metaphors and idioms so if you can find a chance to insert these into your conversation, that would help them to better understand them! Our day ended with work on our research.

Talk too much!

Oh my goodness, we are back to being a chatty bunch! I tried to group them together again as they were all so spread around the classroom that it was getting hard to walk but now that they are sitting with people, they are chatterboxes! We need to find a happy medium. While I'm super excited they know how they work best, they still need to understand and use self-discipline to work with others.

We began our day as usual, however instead of a morning question, it was Mystery Monday and we tried to crack secret codes. In our meeting, we shared the highlight of our weekend and then warmed ourselves up with a reading/acting of the Fidget Family. After saying the Pledge of Allegiance and setting our behavioral SMART goal for the day, we reviewed our line plot assessment from Friday. Only 3 kiddos scored 5/5, so we are going to practice this week, in addition to moving on to multiplication with whole numbers and fractions, and then assess again on Friday. Then, we moved onto going over our pre-assessment for our next unit and found that a large portion of our class showed proficiency, as did a group of kiddos from Mrs. Bolyard's class. So, for this unit, we are going to switch things up a bit! Some students will be going to Mrs. Bolyard's class for instruction on multiplication with whole numbers and fractions. The rest of our class and some of Mrs. Bolyard's kids will be working with me to extend their thinking and go deeper with their math thinking. Then, we had an overview and practiced multiplication with fractions using equations, models and number lines. Today was gym, lunch and indoor recess. Our student council members shared about our upcoming Val-o-gram sale and then Mama returned home in A Night Divided. She is not happy with Gerta and Fritz and the tunnel they have been digging while she's been gone. We read independently and then made a figurative language resource. Next, we continued our research and began writing our informational essay. Finally, we finished up our day with discussing the Revolutionary War and-spoiler alert-the colonists won! :)

Assessment Morning?

This morning began with a lot of assessments. We took our M4T assessment and then our Line Plot Post-Assessment followed by our Unit 5 Pre-Assessment. Luckily, we also had time for some free math, watched the ADE News and enjoyed our "Find the beauty Friday" morning question where we turned a doodle into a masterpiece! We had Music, lunch and indoor recess and then went down to 2nd grade, Mrs. Kleman's room, to see their research presentations. Once we returned, we found out that Officer Muller found Gerta and Fritz while they were tunneling! Instead of killing them for treason, they coerced Officer Muller into using their tunnel to take his family to the West. That was a close call! After reading independently, we watched a rap about figurative language and tried to recognize the figurative language in a couple of poems. Then, we researched in Writer's Workshop and in Social Studies, we discussed the Declaration of Independence (and why we celebrate July 4th/Independence Day...one kiddo said, "I just thought it was a day for picnics, parties and fireworks!). We found a parody video to "Too Late to Apologize" too!

101st day of school!

Our day started with M4T, Ohio Dailies and i-time. It was Tell me a story Thursday and they each added 3 words to complete our story. Ally tried to kill the character in the second sentence but I made her change it-too soon! :) In our meeting, Saya added to our language greetings with an Indian greeting, Namaste and we discussed our favorite numbers and why they are our favorites. Did you know that some of your birthdays and sports numbers are your kiddos favorite numbers? We did Science this morning again and today we looked at the temperature of objects. If we put a thermometer on a wood block, wool hat, metal pan and glass plate, how many objects will be the same temperature? 0, 2, 3 or all? We're going to try it out tomorrow and hopefully, will better solidify our understanding of heat vs. temperature since the mitten problem still has some kiddos a little confused. In Math Workshop, we measured our pencils and used this data to create a line plot. Unfortunately, they are still struggling with scaling the data across the bottom of the line plot. I think they'd be able to do it with whole numbers and they understand fractions so I think it's just them having to do both at the same time. We're taking a little assessment tomorrow and I think they'll do fine. It was Art for special, lunch and guess what?? indoor recess. We were all eager to read A Night Divided and today, they had a very close call with both Anna and Officer Muller! We can't wait to read on tomorrow! We read independently and then in Reader's Workshop, read poetry to find a poem that gave us the feels and illustrated our feeling of the poem and shared them with the class. We are still researching and going to be writing informational text/essay/reports soon so we looked at some mentor texts of interesting ways to write information without just stating the facts or being too boring.

Willkommen!

Willkommen, we found out, means, "Welcome," in German, while reading A Night Divided. So, today was Willkommen Wednesday and in our morning question and in meeting, we discussed words we know from other languages. This led to our new poster of greetings!

We also played a game in meeting where we had numbers on our back and had to ask only yes or no questions to figure out the number. They loved this! In Math Workshop, we continued measuring from yesterday to gather data to then display on a line plot. The tough part of this for them was figuring out how to scale the line to represent their data. So, we measured the circumference of our heads and used this data to make a line plot together, which went much smoother. After interpreting our data and making some conclusions, we cleaned up and headed down to gym, lunch and back for another indoor recess. As Pryce said, "I think January and April are switched..." :) In A Night Divided, Gerta and Fritz are getting more creative with digging this tunnel and disposing of the dirt and have now tunneled about 10 meters! Anna is talking to Gerta again and wants to help with the garden. Great. After reading independently, we found poems that made us feel happy and sad and explained what from the poem makes them feel this way. In Writer's Workshop, we came back to researching and informational text writing. We ended our day working on finding cause and effect situations of the colonists that led to our independence as a country, in Social Studies. 

Great day!

Today was an overall great day. There wasn't anything big that stood out but we completed our work and did it mostly with a smile on our face!

We completed our M4T and Ohio Dailies for morning work to get our brain warmed up and then had i-time. After focusing on ourselves as individuals, we greeted our friends and came together for our morning meeting. In meeting, we shared how we know what others are feeling-examples of their facial expressions and/or body language. We know that Noah is happy when he smiles; Omar is not focused when he's reading a book; Conner is frustrated when he puts his hood up and head down. Then, we talked about social skills and some of the essential social skills needed to succeed.

We tried something new today with doing Science in the morning so next, we completed a scientific question about heat v. temperature. Ask your kiddos about the Mitten Problem. In Math Workshop, we completed the line plot with snail distance data and then did some review of measuring and looked at how inches are divided using fractions. Then, we measured objects in order to gather data for an individual line plot they will be completing tomorrow. Today was Music, lunch and indoor recess, once again. In A Night Divided, Gerta and Fritz continued on the tunnel but also had to work on the garden...however, she "found" a pulley to help them! We read independently-some on EPIC! and others not, conferenced with me about what they are reading and visited the library and then did some work on poetry together. I read poems from, "When Riddles Come Rumbling" and they had to use clues from the words in the poem to figure out what the poem was about. We also had about 10 minutes to check out other poetry. Finally, we concluded our day with our Checkpoint Writing Assessment. Students had 45 minutes to write their opinion essay. What was your kiddo's claim? 

Rain, rain, go away!

I'm tired of this rain... not good for my spirits or my joints! Does this weather make you glum? We had Guidance this morning and worked more with the Zones of Regulation. What color zone do you mostly fit in? Your kiddo? Ask them about some of the breathing strategies they learned about today with Mrs. Vidic. In Math Workshop, we interpreted and gathered data in the form of line plots. (Too many kiddos had to check their shoes to find out their shoes sizes, by the way!) Today was Art, lunch and indoor recess. In A Night Divided, Gerta and Fritz have made big progress on their tunnel and even have permission from the government to be on the land! After independently reading, conferencing with me and/or visiting the library, we met for Reader's Workshop to introduce poetry. We discussed the characteristics of a poem and then read, Hoops, together. We are only working on reading, understanding and interpreting poetry-not writing it just yet. They are using what they've learned about figurative language, inferencing and comprehension to understand the author's feelings. Next, in preparation for our checkpoint writing assessment tomorrow, we went over the rubric, prompt and checklist in order to brainstorm and plan for our essay tomorrow. *Some of them may continue to work on this at home tonight to better prepare for tomorrow. We ended our day with Social Studies and reading about the 13 colonies and their gaining frustration with Britain and identified some cause/effect situations.

Oops!

Sorry-forgot to post the blog on Friday!

We took extra time and consideration on our M4T assessment today~aiming for 10/10. Next, we completed the Flying High makerspace challenge! This was one of our BEST challenges! Everyone participated and we had an excellent time. Then, in Math Workshop, we reviewed, from 3rd grade, what a line plot is. Today was gym and then lunch and unfortunately, due to the morning rain, indoor recess. In A Night Divided, Gerta told Fritz about the building and the "tunnel" when he told her that he was planning an escape. At first, he wants nothing to do with it. He then, however, changes his mind and they decide on a plan. In Reader's Workshop, they cheered when I told them that they had the entire time to just read and blog. :) I love that they love to read and they are really in to this new EPIC! app where they can read digitally~our class has already read 200 books! **They can access at home too, using my educator login: Heather_Lambright@hboe.org with password: room110. I put the link on our Canvas home page but there's also an app for ipads and the url is getepic.com. In Writer's Workshop, we practiced writing sentences with detail by playing a game called, "Guess What" where we took a bit of time to write details about an object in the classroom. Then, we switched with a partner and they guessed what we were writing about. After writing, in Science, we calculated the amount of energy we use each day. We discussed how much of this energy is nonrenewable as well as some things we do that we don't have to that could conserve energy. Finally, we discussed efficiency vs. conservation.

Writing

Our day began as all others do... M4T and Ohio Dailies for morning work, followed by our morning question and i-time. In our morning meeting, we shared a characteristic about ourselves that make us weird and then played category challenge-professional athletes. We said the pledge and wrote our SMART goal and then in Math Workshop, we finished our math assessments (so far, a TON of perfects and near perfects!), worked on extension activities and had some free math. *I will not confirm nor deny that there was poker/blackjack happening...but they were adding and comparing numbers! We had Music, lunch and outdoor recess. In A Night Divided, Gerta decided that because she couldn't stop thinking about her dad and that building, she went back. This time, she took a flashlight and went down into the air raid shelter. Instead of it being a solid metal box, the walls were dirt...her dad wants her to make a tunnel to the west side! We read independently, visited the library and conferenced with me. In Reader's Workshop, we read the poem, "What is Science?" in StoryWorks and completed a comprehension worksheet about the Sciences. We learned a lot of -ologies! I tricked them into writing today for Writer's Workshop by asking them to come to the meeting area with their Writer's Notebooks and a pencil. Once some of them were there, I began writing to them that today, we were only going to write to each other and not speak. The message began to spread through the class and we started having conversation only on paper. A lot of them asked, "Why are we doing this?" Well, their sentence didn't have capitals and punctuation but still asked the question. My response was, "We need to practice writing so that we can become better writers." By the end of Writer's Workshop, they were writing more and using better conventions-capitals and punctuation. They even asked to do it again! We ended our day with the Ohio Energy Project and discussing renewable and nonrenewable resources.

Back in class

We didn't have school on Monday and I spent yesterday in the hallway reading with students all day so I enjoyed being back with all of my kiddos in the classroom today! Our morning began with M4T, Ohio Dailies and the start of our next round of i-Time. We tried to focus our thinking to write a goal for this round. I will be working with a handful of kiddos on spelling patterns so today we took an assessment so that I can better focus on their needs. In Math Workshop, some tested, some worked with extension activities and others practiced. The rest of the class will be testing tomorrow. We had art today, lunch and outdoor recess and then excitedly got back into reading A Night Divided. Today, Gerta found the building that was in the drawing and she took her shovel, however, she only found an air raid shelter in the basement and is completely deflated because she knew that this picture plus her father's "dancing/digging" meant to dig at this building... After Read Aloud, we took the STAR Reading test, finished reading the digital articles on Newsela about Martin Luther King, Jr. that we began yesterday, checked out another new digital literacy tool, EPIC!, where we can read unlimited books online, for FREE! We also finished up our opinion writing prompt from yesterday.

Outside recess!!

We finally had outside recess today!! (Unfortunately I was the one on duty and it was cold! Some kiddos didn't even wear a coat and I was dressed in my coveralls! :)
We completed our M4T assessment and Ohio Dailies followed by i-time. We began with a kahoot made by Matt and Conner but this time, I came in 3rd place! Then, in Math Workshop, we had some edible math (my favorite kind!) and made fraction (trail) mix! They had to find the total amount of ingredients and then compare it with a partner. We also worked on some other fraction work and signed up for taking our post-assessment. Is your kiddo signed up to assess on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday? What do they feel they need more practice with? Today was music, lunch and recess and in A Night Divided, Fritz is acting a little different and Gerta got a drawing from her dad, at least she thinks so, but what does it mean?? During independent reading, we enjoyed our potato head celebration of root beer (or Sprite or Orange) floats! We completed our text structure worksheet about "Black Sunday," in StoryWorks and worked to gather more research before moving on to Science and the Ohio Energy Project.

My high is that I don't have any lows! :)

We had a few minutes at the end of the day before walking out the door so we shared our highs and one kiddo summed it up as, "My high is that I don't have any lows!" That makes for a good day!

As usual, we completed our morning work of M4T and Ohio Dailies followed by i-time. Our morning question asked, What do you think this quote means?? "We must all face the choice between what is RIGHT and what is EASY." ~Albus Dumbledore (Harry Potter) which led to our wonderful and full of feels morning meeting. I read, The Invisible Boy, which was A-MAZING!! and then I played a song, "Clay," by Grace Vanderwaal (the girl that won America's Got Talent). Ask your kiddo about the book and song not just because I can't put the feels into words but because I hope they got the powerful message of kindness. In Math, we continued working with improper fractions and mixed numbers by finishing our creatures and doubling recipes. We split our Math Workshop around watching the 1st grade musical-love those little ones! Today was Art, lunch and indoor recess and some of us had a pizza party lunch for completing the winter break challenge! In A Night Divided, Fritz returned (phew!) but with a black eye and realizing their apartment was bugged. Gerta's friend, Anna, told Gerta that she doesn't want to be her friend anymore because she's like a disease and everyone around her seems to get in trouble... We read independently and visited the library and in Reader's Workshop, we tried to apply our understanding of text structures to our StoryWorks story. We continued our research for Writer's Workshop and conferenced about improving our writing. Our day concluded with Science and more Ohio Energy Project with Kinetic and Potential energy.

Celebration!

Yay! We completed our potato head today! We earned a lot of pieces this week and today, after our community meeting behavior, we placed our final piece! We actually earned 2 pieces for our excellence in the Media Center with Mrs. Dornburgh. She did a lot of talking and we sat quietly and stayed focused for almost an hour! Wow! Tomorrow, we'll vote on our celebration and celebrate, probably, Friday.

Our day began with M4T and Ohio Dailies followed by i-time. In our morning meeting, we shared what we had for dinner last night (a lot had pizza!) and played coseeki. We also shouted, "Happy Birthday" to Conner through the wall since he was next door at Focus. :) After saying the pledge and checking in on our SMART goal, we practiced making/understanding/converting improper fractions and mixed numbers by making a "creature" of some sort using circles and fractional pieces. I can't wait to get these hung up in our "zoo!" Our Math Workshop was cut a little short today so we could go to our community meeting. In this meeting, we discussed our school climate and were reminded that "At ADE, we... take care of ourselves, each other and our school." We also were reminded how following these ideas will allow us to stay Above the Line. (I tried to attach the slides that Mr. H used along with his discussion but I'm having difficulty... I'll upload them to Canvas, under the Parent Information Module~have your kiddos log in and help you!) We had gym, lunch and unfortunately, indoor recess. In A Night Divided, Gerta found out that her best friend's brother was killed trying to escape and Gerta's brother has been held and interrogated as they believe he knows something or was involved. Meanwhile, Gerta saw her dad!! And he did a little dance that she thinks was giving her a message or a clue... We read independently and visited the library for independent reading. Next, we did an awesome job with our rapid evacuation!! Kudos, kiddos! Once we came back in and settled down, we read the informational article in StoryWorks, "Black Sunday." We continued with Mrs. Dornburgh's discussion about researching for Writer's Workshop by picking our topic and beginning to search for information. Finally, we completed our day finishing up with the Early People of Ohio!

Slippery!

Wow-it was slippery this morning! I almost hit Mrs. Bolyard's car in the parking lot and slipped a few times trying to get in to school! I hope your drive and trek this morning was safe!
We completed our M4T, Ohio Dailies and i-time and then had a pretty serious discussion during morning meeting. Tomorrow, we are going to practice a safety drill where instead of hiding in the classroom, we will practice a rapid evacuation. I stressed that this is a serious drill, just like fire and tornado, however, they shouldn't be scared. It's highly unlikely that we'll ever have a fire but we practice so we know what to do just in case. The same thing applies to this. We'll be evacuating and for tomorrow, meeting on school grounds, however, we discussed that for a true rapid evacuation, they'd continue toward Summit apartments or the woods, from our exit. I hope they shared our conversation with you and will tell you more after tomorrow's practice. We also played, "Just like me!" to help Declan and Alexis find others that may have similar interests as them. After saying the pledge and checking in our SMART goals for the day, we got started with Math Workshop. We began with a gallery walk looking at how we solved our fraction word problems from yesterday and the homework question from last night. (By the way, only 10 of our 27 students answered the one question they were given last night...) Then, we modeled adding fractions and then moved on to adding fractions with a sum of more than one whole, which transitioned our discussion into improper fractions and mixed numbers. We practiced converting from improper to mixed number and played a little game matching fractions with their compositions and ended math with a little "I have..., who has?" We had music (yay recorders!), lunch and indoor recess and then a few kiddos from Mrs. Kalb's class came over and performed a Reader's Theater of The Water Princess to raise awareness for the lack of clean water in Africa. In A Night Divided, we learned about record players and records because Gerta and Fritz were listening to the Beatles, a banned album in East Berlin, and very few new what these looked like. We do a lot of discussion with this book so we aren't getting very far. Then, we read independently and visited the library and in Reader's Workshop, we continued to find examples of text structures in informational text. Afterwards, we spent the rest of our afternoon in the media center learning about research with Mrs. Dornburgh. We had a few minutes while waiting for the bell, at the end of the day, and shared our highs and lows of the day.

Another new kiddo!

I love getting new students! The more, the merrier! Getting new students always gives us some fresh eyes to what is happening in our classroom and helps us to stay on top of things. So, welcome Alexis! We started back into our M4T and Ohio Dailies for morning work and after i-time, we shared about our weekend in our morning meeting. Then, after saying the pledge, we wrote our SMART goal for today and gathered back around for a little "game" of popple where we counted around the circle composing and decomposing fractions. In Math Workshop, we played a matching game to match up fractions with their decomposed parts (so, 1/4 + 1/4 + 1/4 matched with 3/4). We switched gears a little and looked at fractions within word problems. They practiced solving fraction word problems and showing how they solved them using models, equations and/or number lines. After Math Workshop, we went to Art and then had lunch and indoor recess. After cleaning up from recess, we read more from A Night Divided and then answered a question on padlet-which they said was a really hard question today. (You can see their response at https://padlet.com/heather_lambrig/ANDQ1.) I have a feeling this book is going to cause them to have to think a lot... We also looked at some actual images of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and 1965 to see what it was really like. A few of them said they thought it would be a lot bigger than it was. Next, we read independently or visited the library. In Reader's Workshop, we learned about text structures and read informational text trying to find examples. We'll be taking a mid-year writing assessment in the next couple of weeks on opinion writing, so in Writer's Workshop, we wrote an opinion piece about either having the ability to read people's minds or never being able to sleep. I noticed, at first glance, that their writing does not seem to be where I'd like it to be... I'll know more after reading them though. Finally, we ended our day reading about the Historic Indians.

Frigid Friday

We began our day sharing something about each other that we missed while gone on break. Then, we completed a 6 question review sheet of equivalent fractions and comparing fractions. Next, I placed a cut/folded piece of paper on each table and gave them the job of trying to replicate it. This was more of the power of YET. They worked and worked and most of them figured it out and replicated it. Hopefully, they brought it home and shared it with you. These kids are so much better at figuring this stuff out than us older folks! After our meeting and playing a few rounds of "Would you rather?" we continued our work with composing and decomposing fractions using pizza! Well, paper pizza that is! They rode scooters in gym, had a great lunch and another messy indoor recess. In A Night Divided, 4 years has passed and the fence has now become a cement and brick wall and Gerta still hasn't seen her brother or father...however, one day, when walking to school, she saw someone waving that she thinks might be Dominic! Unfortunately, a guard sees her and threatens her to keep her away from the people in West Berlin... We read independently and set January Book-it goals when conferencing with me and then worked further with our non-fiction text feature scavenger hunt to finish up Reader's Workshop. In Writer's Workshop, we did some free-writing and then in Science, worked more with our Ohio Energy Project with looking at transformation of energy using some cool toys.

Following directions

Oh my goodness. You would've thought that I asked them to complete an obstacle course with zero instructions, the way they struggled with a simple task this afternoon! Do they struggle at home with following simple directions? Were they just not listening? Not paying attention? Whatever it was, it was painful and didn't end the day very well. Maybe it was because it was the end of the day... let's go with that! :)

We began our day with some fraction practice problems, reflecting upon what we want to learn and what we need to practice for i-time and understanding and EMBRACING the "Power of YET!" Instead of saying/feeling/believing, "I can't do _____," we are now trying to train ourselves that we just can't do it YET! Help to model this in your home by allowing yourself to feel the power of YET. We read, Giraffes Can't Dance and watched a little video on Class Dojo. Then, we discussed situations where we can look back and see that we just hadn't discovered our YET. Math Pre-Tests are a great example! So, I handed back their pre-tests from yesterday and we set goals. Although, most of us were disappointed with such a low number, we embraced the power of YET because, duh!, it's a pre-test and we haven't learned it YET! Then, we did some work with composing and decomposing fractions. So far, so good... It was then, Music, lunch and what I see as a growing pattern of indoor recesses. After cleaning up from a very messy recess, we voted on our next read aloud as I read, Snappsy the Alligator. Once tallied, we began reading from, A Night Divided which is a very serious historical fiction book set in 1961 when a fence went up in the middle of the night in East Berlin with half of a family on either side...and we are only on chapter 3! They surprised me with that choice but it is good so far! They are very interested in historical fiction as they do love "I Survived..." books. We had time to read independently and visit the library and then in Reader's Workshop, were introduced to Lightbox books that our library has that has a really awesome digital component too (can be accessed through my Canvas home page.) We were looking at/reviewing Informational Text/Non-fiction text features-table of contents, index, glossary, photographs, captions, etc. We had a short time for some free-writing and then the madness happened. ;) We began our study of energy by discussing what we know about energy and what it is. *More information will be coming home tomorrow about this project and how you can help!!

Happy New Year!

I was so happy to have all of my kiddos back today! I felt like I was missing some family over these past two weeks. AND we had a new member today~Declan, from Texas, has joined our classroom community! Of course we had an extended morning meeting so that everyone could share what they did while away. Some got new pets, new shoes, new electronics and one even got a new brother! Congrats Riley family! Once we finally got to Math Workshop, we took our pre-assessment over addition and subtraction of fractions so we can get started on learning about composing and decomposing fractions tomorrow. Today was B day so we had Art and then lunch and indoor recess. We are reading a new book for read aloud so we took time to check out the titles that are participating in March Book Madness (marchbookmadness.weebly.com). We'll pick at least one of the middle grade titles to read before the voting begins (we've already read 2 this year!) and I have checked out a lot of them from the public and our school library so they can borrow them to read independently too. Then, we decided to take some time to check out the books we have in our classroom library and instead of having tubs of books organized by author and genre on the shelves, students partnered up and filled a tub with books they are interested in reading and labeled it with their name. This generated a lot of interest in the books we have in our room and they enjoyed finding "new" books to read. In Writer's Workshop, we did some free-writing while some finished their pre-test and we finished up our day talking Science and what we can do to become better scientists.