Monday Oct 3rd: Mini-books and Bach

Three students pose with finished "ABC of Me" mini-books.

Notices:

Thursday is picture day, dress nice, bring back forms

We started the day with the practice pre-test for this weeks spelling words. All students were told to take their practice spelling test and the full spelling list of words home. I did not get time to update the spelling words on the blog but will do it tomorrow.

This weeks mini book is part vocabulary part learning about synonyms (words that mean the same thing) to make their writing more interesting. The book is called "I am Big"
The students were given the following list of synonyms for big:

Definition:
large, great
Synonyms:
a whale of a, ample, awash, brimming, bulky, *, burly, capacious, chock-full, colossal, commodious, considerable, copious, crowded, enormous, extensive, fat, full, gigantic, heavy-duty, heavyweight, hefty, huge, hulking, humongous*, husky, immense, jumbo, mammoth, massive, mondo, monster*, oversize, packed, ponderous, prodigious, roomy, sizable, spacious, strapping, stuffed, substantial, super colossal, thundering, tremendous, vast, voluminous, walloping, whopper, whopping
Antonyms:
itsy, little, small, tiny

We talked about which ones were appropriate synonyms for describing a person or thing rather than a space or lots of power. The students have to write a mini-book using many of the synonyms of big. This is as much a vocabulary builder as a lesson in writing stories.

After recess the students had music with Mrs. Awalt .... then we divided into two math groups to continue practicing addition with regrouping.

After lunch the students not in choir listened to the amazing music of Johan Sebastian Bach and completed a one page report on Him.

This was followed by Socials where we continued our study of North American Native homes. Through a study of the types of homes and dwellings used by a people we can tell many things about how the people lived and the environments that they lived in... Today we studied the Pueblo, large multi-family dwellings made of piled rocks, clay and straw bricks. This form of dwelling was used by the Navajo, the Hopi and the Zuni Nations. So far we have looked at the wigwam of the Algonquin, the tepee of the prairies nations, the long house of the West coast and the igloo of the Inuit.