A Peek at my Week 2.24.13

Happy Sunday Blog World!! I have been out of commission for the past week and one thing that I made myself NOT do was open any of my blogging sites.  It's not because I don't love them, trust me it's quite the opposite, but I really needed to take some time this week.  Baby and I are fine, but we had a scare earlier in the week that had me in and out of the hospital.  We're not entirely sure what's going on, but my blood pressure is the main culprit.  So I really had to take it easy and step back from all of my extra stuff this week. I'm hoping for an uneventful last week of February, as I bring in my birthday on March 1 (come on spring!!!!)  and also hoping for a lot of blogging!!!! 



I'm linking up with my co-worker, Jennifer and her weekly linky party 'A Peek at My Week' to share what I've got going on.  Be sure to check out her blog and what others have posted! It really has helped me get organized for the week ahead.

This week.....  
Math-
This week in math we're really spending a lot of time shifting gears to focus on subtraction methods.  Last week we were successful.  We started using proof drawings to check our subtraction.  

Then as the week goes on, we will slowly get away from drawing the pictures and use addition to relate to the subtraction problems and it looks a lot like what we did with the relationship between multiplication and division!  

We will end the week with multi-step word problems involving both addition and subtraction. 







LA-
This week we are wrapping up our poetry unit.  The kids have LOVED learning about poetry and reading/writing different kinds of poetry.  We end the unit with a poem presentation & fluency project. Students are given a poem that I choose for them. I tape record them reading the poem on a cold run. They watch their poem and we come up with what they should practice on.  They then take their poetry toolbox from all of our previous poems that we've read and decide what elements from their toolbox to add to their own poem.  They pick what kind of rate they will say their poem, their volume and their voice. They will also add an element like a pause or bold/italic word of their own to make the poem of their own.   They then practice their poem all week and present it to the class on Friday. Some get really into it and dress in costume or make a cute background to go along with their poem. Here are just a few of my favorite poems that students will be reciting! I love Kenn Nesbitt's poetry, and the students think that the goofier the poems the better.  You can access some great resources online here at www.poetry4kids.com

Writing- We will continue our focus on non-fiction reading and writing together.  This week we're really hoping for students to be able to put together their own paragraphs about a topic that they have read about independently.  We've really been working hard together on this, so let's hope I have some great things to share at the end of the week!




I hope everyone has a great last week of February!!!  What do you think March will come in like? A lion or a lamb?