Week of Feb. 6th

This week in literacy we explored the importance of having a strong beginning of a story to capture our audiences attention. We explored a variety of fictional books and record which story beginning we liked. We discovered that the beginning of a story sets the tone for everything that will happen next. An opener is like an appetizer, offering a reader a glimpse into what is to come. several of the strategies we explore were to: begin with an action or dialogue, ask a question, describe the setting, provide some background information or have the main character introduce him or herself. 

In Math, we have learned how to write a multiplication sentence and model multiplication as equal groups. In doing so we have also built on our understanding the connection between multiplication and repeated addition. This week the students learned how to model multiplication using arrays. Through the use of arrays we were also able to explain what the commutative property of multiplication is i.e. 3x6 and 6x3. 

To support our ability to learn our multiplication tables the students have been encourage to skip count on their fingers to help them. As a class, we have learned to find the sum by skip counting by 2s,3s,4s,5s, up to the multiple of 10. Instead of writing out the whole addition pattern, we can use our fingers to keep track of how many times we add. By holding up a fist we raise our thumb and say the first number in the pattern and so on.