Busy Start to our Week

We've been busy bees in room 227!  We have read more PYP IB learner trait stories "Diary of a Worm" (communicator) and "Empty Pot" (nearly all!!!).  We have really enjoyed learning about the traits and we're getting good at recognizing them in each other.

In reading we have been talking about setting goals for our reading and finding times throughout our day (home and school) to read to meet our goals.  As we build stamina we will strive for a goal of 30 minutes of reading during our school day and 30 at home.  Tomorrow we will begin working with a reading partner to help us stay focused on our goals as well as be a sounding board for book suggestions and 'book talk.'  By the end of the week we will set all have our individual goals decided on and complete our Term 1 Reading Contract (to read 2 fiction and 1 non-fiction books).

In writing we are still working in the pre-writing stage as we are filling our composition notebooks with many lists and categories that will be sure to help us when we are 'blocked' and can't think of anything to write about. :)

In math we are working hard to read, write, order and compare whole numbers.  We are doing many hands-on activities to practice these skills.  We are also working on problem solving.  We are using the mnemonic device: Unique People Squeeze Lemons to help us remember the steps to solving word problems:
U - Understand (1. What do we KNOW 2. What do we NEED TO KNOW)
P - Plan - Pick a strategy
S - Solve - Show my work
L - Look Back (Check calculating, Did I answer the question, Is my answer reasonable)

In our Inquiry Unit we started off by reviewing our theme (Sharing the Planet) and our central idea (Organisms are interconnected with their environment for survival).  Today we played a survival game.  We pretended we were on a yacht in the South Pacific 100 miles away from land when suddenly a fire of unknown origin broke out.  While we helped the crew put out the fire, the navigation system was destroyed along with parts of the yacht.  Rubber life rafts with oars were salvaged along with a list of 15 items.  We worked in groups to organize/rank a list of 15 items that were salvaged in order of importance to our survival. Upon collaboration and sharing it was determined by most groups that items for personal use (food, water) were most important.  After a class discussion we learned that the items for signaling purposes were of top priority because of our situation; we needed to focus on the rescue before the personal needs because the amount of supplies we had available wouldn't last as long as it would take us to row 100 miles to land.... anyway, it was way more in depth but it was a great discussion and lesson into how our surroundings/environment affect our survival as well as how our decision affect our community. :)

Stay tuned...