Good evening!

Today we continued to review Multiplication in Math. Students are working on practicing using what we have started calling the “traditional” strategy for multiplication. Students of course do NOT have to use this strategy and are more than welcome to keep using the expanded form or base ten block arrays. However, we have broken this strategy down into some steps to help students. They are:

  1. Use the bottom ones place.
  2. Multiply (x) by the top ones place.
  3. Multiply (x) by the top tens place.
  4. Cross out what I carried and put in a marker below the ones place (we usually use a 0 in class).
  5. Use the bottom tens place.
  6. Multiply (x) by the top ones place.
  7. Multiply (x) by the top tens place.
  8. Add it together.

Take a look at the example below:

Math - Jan. 20 Math - Jan. 20-2

This takes some practice, as students sometimes struggle with the sequence.

Today in Language Arts we continued our discussion on poetry. A student shared a Shane Koyczan poem with us entitled, “To This Day” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltun92DfnPY). We watched the poem and then discussed the message behind it and some of the things that we thought might have inspired Shane Koyczan. We all agreed that it was a powerful and moving poem. I’ve asked students to start thinking about what they find beautiful about themselves, because we are going to return to this poem in a few weeks. Our poetry lesson for today was all about exploring these two “truths”:

  1. Anything can be poetry.
  2. Poetry is story-telling.

Today we looked at the first truth – anything can be poetry. We explored this by creating some “Found Poems”. Poets create a rhythm while writing poetry that is different from writing in prose. They use things like line breaks, commas, periods, exclamation marks, etc. in order to indicate this rhythm to the listener or reader. Today we practiced turning some found writings into poetry by adding some of these elements. I created a poem from my lunch notes as a demonstration. Check it out below:

Lunches
Number one
Chicken quesadilla:
peppers,
Thursday,
Kaisha.
 
Number two
Chocolate fruit:
Monday,
Rebecca, Madisyn.
 
Number three
Pizza:
cheese,
Tuesday,
Shahzaib.

 

Students worked in groups or individually to find some writing around the room and turn it into poetry. Check out the example below!

 

Awards
Ms. Barrington,
makes my lunch.
 
15 mins.
of DPA
for everyone.
 
Eat lunch,
 
With a
friend.
 
SECRET
RECESS!

 

Or how about this one:

 

The Habitats
Definition:
The place where an animal,
and plant
community naturally occur.

 

I’ll be sure to keep sharing some of our found poems throughout the week. Good work everyone!

Agenda:

Read 20 minutes

Reading Journal (Friday)

Multiplication Quiz (tomorrow) – 3x and 4x

Spelling (Word Practice)

L.A. – find a favourite poem (tomorrow!)

Health – FRIENDS pgs. 65-66 (tomorrow!)

Friday: Movie Night @ 6:30 pm (Despicable Me 2)

Ski Day: Feb. 6th

Monday: Family Literacy Night

January 29th – WiM Poetry Due

January 29th – Book Orders Due