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.