First Day of Spelling

IU

• One of my boys is excited that I used to attend Indiana University. We celebrate every IU win and he shows me his IU gear. It makes me really happy!

Spelling

• I am glad that my teacher was able to step in and help me at the beginning of my lesson today. We did not have spelling last week because we took the ISTEP+. The students had forgotten what a doublett was. 
• It wasn't so bad creating the spelling materials this week, my teacher gave and lent me some nice resources. 
• I have typed up the spelling words for the rest of the school year. We use Words Their Way: Word Sorts for Syllables and Affixes Spellers for our spelling words. I hope to have them all formatted by the end of the week. Having the lists completed will make for one less thing for me to worry about. I am still looking for more ideas for what to do for spelling homework as well as for the word work station during the reading workshop. 

Science

• It was fun to see how excited the students were about the lab. They literally oohed and ahhed when they came in from their restroom break and saw the kits on my desk. 
• I made 2 great choices for this project. I put together a kit for each table and I prepared extra aluminum foil squares. If a group approached me because they messed up or ripped their aluminum foil, I only had to send them to my desk for a new piece. 
• The students seem to be excited for fun day. I sent home a letter about fun day and the presentation. 
• I noticed that the students had trouble getting their circuits to light up. I think that it is because of how skinny they made their aluminum foil wires, so I am making aluminum foil caps to help the batteries. I decided to check over each circuit so that I can spend more time teaching the children about conductors and insulators. 

Here are the circuits that my students made today (with the battery removed). We are hoping to have an awesome lab for the next 2 days!

The items in the student test packs. The hot wheel is for my fun day presentation. My kit had a spork set in it, but it fell out in my desk

I realized that the circuits weren't working because the foil between the light wires was connected, which confused the energy. We also labeled where the students had the battery and the testing area. With less confusion, the students can test more of their items.

Planning for Personal Narrative

• I like how this unit is coming along. I discovered that I like to see the big picture. When I create the lesson plans for a unit, I prefer to create a general unit plan so that I can see how the different parts relate to each other. 
• My teacher put together this text set to accompany my unit: