Frosted Flakes

Happy Thursday folks!

We started the day out with some creating writing. Take a look at what some folks wrote:

For ELA, we worked more in depth today using our skills with reference materials while reading Ramona the Pest.  When reading, we quickly marked a word we found interesting or didn't know. After reading for the first time, we went back to the text and used context clues to make a possible definition for the word. We then cracked open a dictionary to look for the actual definition of the word along with the part of the speech. We again used context clues to choose the right definition of the word because many words have more than one meaning. Most times dictionary definitions themselves are hard to understand, so we took the dictionary definition and put it into our own word in order to make meaning. Finally, after we acquired an understanding of the word, we put put it into a well written sentence to illustrate our understanding. Bam! (RL.3.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, distinguishing literal from nonliteral language. L.3.4a Use sentence-level context as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase. L.3.4d Use glossaries or beginning dictionaries, both print and digital, to determine or clarify the precise meaning of key words and phrases.)

For math today, we focused on estimating, rounding, and how it relates to addition. It felt awesome teaching this lesson because years prior, I would get all caught up teaching the rules of rounding, but this year I went about it a more conceptual way, which made it easier for the students to understand rounding in general. Thank you Mrs. Fickett for the great lesson!

Instead of the "five or more, let it soar, four or less, let it rest" rule, I had the students make a number line when rounding a number. They were to find the anchor/benchmark numbers, the midway number, and then place their number on  the number line to see which anchor that specific number was closer too. (NBT.A.1 Use place value understanding to round whole numbers to the nearest 10 or 100. NBT.A.2 Fluently add and subtract within 1000 using strategies and algorithms based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction.Here's a few student examples for clarification.)

And we had some P.E. near the end of the day!

And that's Thursday for you! Cheers!