Tweet-Unit 9 is Here!-Tweet

The warm spring weather many have been waiting for is finally here! Now if the rain would hold off, everyone would have a chance to settle in for the warm months ahead.  Everything is affected by the rain; schools, baseball teams, cities and nature!  Staying indoors has urged Room 108 to becoming a Twitter classroom as well!  So I must be very straightforward and admit this recent Twitter fad has finally caught up with me and I am giving it a shot.  It is merely me, sending updates from the classroom and school, about the things Room 108 students are doing at that very moment.  All "tweets" are time stamped and sent directly from either my computer or iPhone.  Room 108 has already gained a few followers and I hope the trend continues.  It is impossible for anyone to capture EVERYTHING students experience in the course of a day (Let's be honest, many of your children don't even remember what happened at school today!) but technology is allowing for an interesting way to capture major events.  Hope you are able to occasionally follow!

Here is your "old-fashioned" curriculum update:

Unit 8 is over in both reading and math.  The new theme for reading is "Being Afraid" and focuses children on stories relating to fear.  Students are going to be engaged in constructing story diagrams and charts of all kinds to activate comprehension skills and make story connections.  Personal experience and thoughts are going to prove most valuable for children as they discuss selections with their peers throughout the unit.  Math is becoming a bit more challenging on a daily basis as the direction of Unit 9 heads into place value and fractions.  The number grids (hundred charts) are going to be utilized on a daily basis as a strategy to solidify awareness of place value, for most it will be ones, tens, and hundreds.  For others, the sky is the limit as numbers will be explored forwards and backwards, up and down, as well as diagonally.  Fractions hopefully become more engrained in children's mind as they use pattern blocks and paper strips to identify equal parts, comparing fractions, and dividing wholes.  

Science and social studies are aligning nicely as the end of the school year nears.  Insects have infested our entire classroom and science curriculum.  This works out well for geography skills and social studies as students are connecting bug types with geographic locations.  Insects, such as ants and bees, also provide a nice insight into the intricacies of communities and the dynamics of their citizens.  Don't be surprised if your child has already started, or begins soon, a sudden interest in creepy crawlies!