Challenge!!

The BUGS want to challenge all the parents (grandparents, dear friends, neighbor Bob...):

How many sounds does the regular past tense ending "-ed" make?  

Can you predict when it will make each sound?

Reply in the comment section with your answers!
 (Guesses are totally accepted but might make us chuckle.  We know grown-ups weren't taught all the awesome grammar rules like we learn now!)

(You can email-a-teacher for a hint!)

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Tonight's Homework

I never did find another awesome app like Educreations, so you're stuck with just a regular ol' video, but I hope it helps to explain tonight's homework as well as the approach we take to laying the foundation for subtracting with two digit numbers using regrouping.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXA6j-g4RsM

The students really have a great mastery (not just surface knowledge of the process) of the math concepts behind the algorithms and I am thrilled they have such a solid base for learning!  

I do have a few students who struggle mightily with these concepts, however.  These few tend to be the students who are not yet fluent in their math facts as these strategies require students to add and subtract in several steps.  If your child falls into this category it's okay for them to simply use the number line to count backwards to the answer.  Realize, however, that this is not solving the problem, just giving them tools to get by for now.  

You will continue to see videos from me any time that I think the math lesson differs from "how we were taught" (although I'm older than all of you!)  I hope it helps, but don't do battle over math homework!  If your child doesn't understand, I'm here early every morning and can always help!! 

Let me know if you have any questions!

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The Quest!

The Royal BUGS of the Room 18 Kingdom went on a quest today to search all the land for regular past tense verbs.

The Royal BUGS of the Room 18 Kingdom went on a quest today to search all the land for regular past tense verbs. 

They found many, many verbs with morphological endings (ask!  They know what that means!) that change the meaning of the verb to “already happened”! 

Tomorrow our quest continues to find how many sounds does regular past tense make and is there a pattern to behold?!?!

Stay tuned…

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Quick and Easy Activities for Home Part Something-or-Another :)

I forget how many of these I've done.  That's what I get for naming them with sequential numbers, huh?  In any case, if you're looking for ideas to do at home here are a couple for this week:

Reading: Go on a word hunt!  Use any book, newspaper, magazine, catalog, junk mail, anything and see what amazing words your child can find and read!  Look for words with two syllables, or plural or for this week - regular past tense verbs (they all end with -ed!) Maybe you want to find words with double letters and see if you can figure out why?  Remember, you don't have to know all the answers you just have to keep asking questions!

Math: Demonstrate math in real life.  Show your student times when you have to use math as an adult and let him/her participate!  Even if the actual math is too complicated, can they tell you if you should add or subtract?  How do they know that?  Can they help write the math sentence for the problem?  Whether you are cooking, building, paying bills, paying for groceries or getting gas we use math a lot in our lives and our kids benefit from seeing those applications and participating in them!

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Fairy Tales!

The BUGS are so excited to start an adventure learning about fairy tales!  This comparative literature unit will last for the next six weeks and will help students to understand the different characteristics of fairy tales from other narrative forms of writing and will study this genre not only from a reading perspective but also from the viewpoint of an author!

We will celebrate our learning on Friday, January 23rd with a very special edition of Sharing Day - "Fairy Tale Friday!"  More information will come with exact times and locations of our event, but mark your calendar now and plan to attend our special event!  We can't wait to share our learning with you!

Throughout the next six weeks, watch for special projects and activities happening on the website and coming home!  We're off on an adventure!!

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What Did You Do Over Thanksgiving Break?

Hey BUGS!!  What did you do over your long Thanksgiving weekend?

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Darrin --First to One Hundred!

Darrin was the first student to get all 100 addition facts right in under five minutes!  Way to go, Darrin!!

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