Practice makes perfect!

Our day began as usual with M4T and Ohio Dailies followed by i-time and morning meeting. In our meeting, we went over the blueprint for our first AIR test next week. They know exactly what they have to do and about how many points there will be. Then, they worked either on their own or with a partner to take the first practice test. As a whole, they did pretty good but 3 areas of weakness stood out: figurative language using greek mythology, informational text structures and theme. The 2 latter were areas I had noticed previously that we needed work with. The greek mythology though... Anyway, we'll work to help fill these holes or to make them feel more secure over the next few days leading up to the test. They know how to access the site and can continue to practice at home if they start getting nervous or feel unprepared. Next, we continued our work with measuring angles with protractors in Math Workshop. They are doing pretty good with this skill! They have always done pretty well when they get to DO things though. We had gym (which this is the first time they've ever groaned when I told them it's time for gym-that last gym day must've really hurt their legs!!), lunch and recess. In The Fourteenth Goldfish, a little romance sparked between Raj and Ellie and grandpa started getting some bad "growing pains"...I hope this isn't a side effect from the T. melvinus... We read independently and in Reader's Workshop, worked to find theme. This didn't go very well so we'll be working more with this tomorrow! Finally, in Writer's Workshop, we finished up our response to the reading about rainbows from yesterday and then switched papers and analyzed each other's responses.