Math: We had a rough go of things on last week's quiz. Simply put - a combination of instruction and carelessness. After today's lesson it was clearer what the expectation is with regard to labeling and demonstration of strategies...I don't think we'll make some of these mistakes again. On the other hand, based on our warm-up I realized we had some confusion with units of measure and what that meant so we spent a bit of time discussing what it means to be a standard (inches, feet, centimeters...) or non-standard unit (paper clips, arm lengths, shoes...). Tonight's homework is to complete an estimation worksheet that requires them to apply a specific strategy to solve the area of a particular shape.

1. Number the WHOLE squares.
2. Combine the PARTIAL squares into whole squares.
3. Add up the whole squares (wholes and partial combinations).

Language Arts:

In the Deep: We responded to the following questions in our RRJs:

What do you wonder about as you look at the cover?

What do you think "the deep" might refer to?

After reading the blurb on the back, did it confirm your ideas? What new information did it add to your thinking?

Sailing to a New Land: After recording some ideas prior to listening to the story in our RRJs, I actually read the story aloud and stopped periodically to ask some questions. Among the questions we discussed were the following:

How would you feel if...?

How did they know life would be hard?

Why did the sisters dance? (this is a bit of inferencing) Does it say that they are going to the new land in the text? If not, how do you know...what happened to indicate they might be going to a new land?

Babe: We completed our T-charts comparing how Babe and Fly treated the sheep by examining their speech and actions toward the sheep. WE discussed their findings in group and pulled text support to further explain the group's thinking.

Tonight, each group is to reread their chapters/book from class today.