Makin' Butter with Our Book Buddies

The week of Thanksgiving we met with our book buddies to celebrate Thanksgiving. We made butter by shaking containers of whipping cream. After the butter was made we spread it on crackers for a tasty treat!            

Native American Interviews- Lipan Apache

Native American Interviews-Karankawa

Native American Interviews- Comanche

Native American Interviews- Caddo

Native American Interviews- Jumano

Native American Interviews- Tonkawa

November Update

I can’t believe we are already into the middle of November, where is the year going?  Here is the November update:

In Math, we are finishing up our unit on division. I am very proud of the class, as they have really done a great job learning the steps for long division. From here will move into fractions until the Winter holidays, but will continue to revisit past lessons to keep them fresh in the their minds.

Moving along in Texas History, we have been studying the Native Texan Indians. We are ending this unit by having our famous news reporters from Mrs. Ratliff’s room interviewing these incredible Texas tribes. I can’t wait to watch and see what they have learned from their research. The interviews will be presented on this Friday, November 15th. I will post the video interviews on the ratliffsroundup blog, so you can view them. Next, we will jump aboard the ships of famous explorers who came to Texas in search of gold and other riches.

Watch out for the earthquake, oh wait… that’s just a land form. Yes, we are right in the middle of land forms. They are creating land form booklets. Then we look at weathering, erosion, and deposition.

We have started our first book club book as a whole class. I do this to set the tone and expectations for when they start book clubs on their own. We are reading The Mixed Up File of Mrs. Basil E Frankwieler. This is always a fun novel to start book clubs with.  We are still practicing our comprehension skills each week.

In writing we will be looking at writing expository pieces of writing, and also writing one. We are working hard on revising and editing also. Both are key to the STAAR test at the end of the year. In grammar, we are moving into verbs.

Texas Regions Posters

There are four fabulous regions in Texas. Each group did research on their region and made a poster to show what their regions had to offer Texas.

October

What we are learning in October:

Math- we are finishing up multiplication of 2x2 digit numbers this week. Next week we will dive into perimeter and area. Then we will be starting division and continuing that until Thanksgiving.

Science- Weather is where is it at! We will be looking at the difference between weather and climate, but also learning about weather patterns, storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, and weather mapping.

Reading- We are still fine tuning our reading comprehension skills (sequencing, main idea, summarizing, context clues, character traits, etc). We will start a whole class book club shortly to teach them about how a book club should look and sound (discussions). I'm so excited to announce... we will be starting Wordly Wise vocabulary next week, yea!!! I will alternate Spelling and Wordly Wise each week. The only Wordly Wise homework they will be bringing home is Wordly Wise D. It is a reading passage (which helps with reading comprehension, deeper thinking, and teaching them to look back into the passage for answers) with 15 questions to be answered using a wordly wise vocabulary word in each sentence. I will place a sticker on the front of the book to remind students of the expectations when answering the questions. Parts A-D will be done in class.

Writing- We are about to finish up our personal narratives, and then will dive into some poetry. I love teaching poetry! A noun is a person, place, or thing as School House Rock taught us. In grammar the focus is on nouns and then on to verbs.

Texas History- We are presenting our regions posters today, so look for pictures to be posted soon! Then we start to learn about the explorers that came to Texas and native Americans that our great state.

1st Post of 2013-14 School Year!

Yea! We are up and running. I will post monthly news notes here along with anything exciting we have been doing in class. The year has started off on a fabulous note and I look forward to the rest of the year.

January News Note

Here is the January news note!

Super Science- We are coming to a close in our study of natural resources. We will finish up with how to reuse, reduce, and recycle this week. Then we will take on the topic of matter- the 3 states of matter, density, conductors and insulators.

Marvelous Math- Decimals are where it's at! We are learning how to relate decimals to fractions, including mixed numbers, adding and subtracting decimals, and ordering and comparing decimals.

Terrific Texas History- Finally, we are hearing some familiar names! Texas is being settled and the Old Three Hundred are moving in. We will continue to study the early beginnings of Texas.

Language Arts- In reading, we are continuing to apply our reading comprehension skills to non-fiction and fiction stories within our Storyworks magazine. In writing, the focus in on expository writing and being able to write a response to a given prompt. Spelling and Wordly Wise are still alternating.

Upcoming Events:
Jan 21st        Student Holiday
Jan 25th        Fine Arts Museum Field Trip

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful and restful break. I wanted to thank you so very much for my wonderful Christmas gift. You are all so thoughtful and sweet. We are back in full swing and the past two days have been great. My next post will update you on the what we are learning and upcoming events.