Bushart's Brilliant Bunch

Day 21: Today's math lesson opened with a review of identifying between what two ______s a number is located. Then we started moving into using these boundary numbers to help us round numbers. Small steps, but we're moving in the right direction of understanding!

Day 21: After days of planning, my brilliant bunch FINALLY had all the pieces in order to write their food memory personal narrative. They put pencils to paper and wrote and wrote. I'm so proud of them! As they finished, they used a checklist before handing in their narrative.

Day 21: We launched our Amplify CKLA lesson today with a review of how to punctuate dialogue. Then students were challenged to write two sentences with dialogue that they can include in their food memory narratives.

Day 20: Our AC was broken this afternoon. On an 85 degree afternoon no less! Despite the heat, my brilliant bunch did a fantastic job making sense of the question, "What is this number between?" as we prepare to move into rounding.

Day 20: For the other part of today's Amplify CKLA lesson, we learned rules for punctuating dialogue. Tomorrow we'll attempt to write some dialogue to include in our food memory narratives.

Day 20: For part of today's Amplify CKLA lesson, students worked in pairs or trios to read a personal narrative written by Beverly Cleary. Then they practiced identifying character traits and cause & effect. We added some great new adjectives to our Character Traits chart!

Day 19: We launched today's math lesson with the Same and Different routine. Lots of great mathematical thinking from my brilliant bunch!

Day 19: In today's Amplify CKLA lesson, we continued to plan our personal narratives about a food memory. Today we wrote each event from the narrative, and then we thought of sensory details we could tie to each event to help bring our stories to life for the reader.

Day 18: We kicked off today's science lesson with some "sticky" practice. We're learning a lot of science vocabulary and ideas, and we want to make sure they "stick" in our brains!

Day 18: To launch today's math lesson, we worked on a problem where students had to use the digits 2, 3, 5, 6, and 9 to make a 5-digit number that makes this comparison true: 96,341 < _ _, _ _ _ Turns out we were able to find *three* different answers!

Day 18: In today's CKLA lesson, we continued planning our Food Memory narratives. After showing how I had listed all of the events of my story about *trying* to make molten chocolate cake, students wrote the events to their stories. Then they shared with a partner for feedback.

Day 18: As we get close to finishing learning the lowercase cursive letters, we're focusing on proper letter formation as well as the connections between letters in words. Today, for example, we looked closely at how a "b" leads into an "i" in the word habit.

Day 17: Our final team building activity this afternoon was hand ping pong. Students worked in pairs to try to hit a ping pong ball on their desks as many times in a row as possible before it fell off or stopped moving. Such a fun Friday afternoon!

Day 17: Our second team building activity today was the paper chain challenge. I was so impressed how close in length all of the finished paper chains were. They all did a great job!

Day 17: Our first team building activity today was called Two Hands on a Pencil. Students worked in partners to draw a picture. The catch is that they couldn't talk, and they *both* had to be holding the pencil while drawing.

Day 17: Today was Team Building Day at Iroquois! To find out their teams this morning, we did an activity called Barnyard Babble. Once students found out who was on their team, they had to make up a team name and team handshake.

Day 17: After reading just a portion of the text previously, today we read and discussed the entire essay "How to Eat a Guava." Afterward, students worked in pairs to answer questions about the text.

Day 17: We're nearing the end of learning the lowercase cursive letters. Today we learned the little loop group. I'm so proud of the time my students have put into practicing in class and at home. I can tell it's paying off!

Day 17: Today we celebrated a HUGE milestone. Every day students earn points for following expectations and answering questions. This week I challenged them to reach 1,000 points by Friday, and they blew past our goal. So proud to celebrate their accomplishment!

Day 16: I want my students to get immediate feedback when they're practicing new skills. Today they checked their own work using an answer key after they finished page 1. That way they could identify any gaps in understanding before tackling page 2.