Latest News in Room 13!

We have had a couple short weeks, but we've been learning a lot in that short time!

In Math, we've been exploring more about multiplication! We learned the commutative property as well as the distributive property! The commutative property tells us that we can multiply factors in any order and still have the same product.  The distributive property shows that we can decompose a factor into other factors (like 3 into 2 and 1) to make multiplying easier.  For example, instead of multiplying 6 x 7 we could multiply 5 x 7 and 1 x 7 instead. We've also worked on multiplication facts. We've now learned 0, 1, 2, 5, 9, 10, and 3.

In Reading, we've been finishing up Stone Fox.  We also have worked on using contextual clues to help find the meaning of unknown words.  We're working on using grit to take the time to do the work instead of trying to read quickly past those unknown words.

In Writing, we've learned how to type in Google Docs, how to share our stories, and how to comment on each other's writing! It's been very exciting! We also have been working on revising our stories for paragraphs, adding specific details, and looking for run-on sentences.  We have been revisiting our great leads and conclusions as well.

In Fundations we wrapped up our second unit successfully!  We learned how to spell 1-1-1 words and those words with different suffixes.  In our upcoming unit we'll be looking at vowel-consonant-e syllables.

In Science we wrapped up or Solar System unit.  We were all sad to say goodbye to the "Moon Phase"song. However, we've begun our unit on early Massachusetts life (Wampanoags, Pilgrims, and Puritans).  We begun talking about who Squanto was, and we'll be learning his journey to England and the events that follow.  We are also beginning to learn what life was like for Wampanoags in the early 1600s.