A Fantasy Train Ride

Our theme this week is the Polar Express. Our word of the day today was "time". It was a rule follower, because it followed the CVCe pattern. It was a popular word family. We listed the words on the board. It rhymes with the contraction "I'm". In math today, we introduced the concept of subtraction. We brainstormed what we thought we knew about it already. We learned the words "minus" and "difference". We also learned that subtraction is like going "backwards" or "taking away". We learned the most important rule of subtraction - Start with the BIG NUMBER FIRST". In groups, we learned to subtract using bells. Mrs. Myers gave us jingle bells and bowls. We made equations by starting out with the big number of the jingle bell set. Then, we took away a smaller number of bells and hid them under our bowl "cave". We counted how many "were left". It was fun. At the end, we got to work with a partner to be the teacher or the learner. After lunch, we finally got to hear the story The Polar Express. It was so magical. After that, we compared a real train ride to the fantasy ride on the Polar Express. We used a venn diagram. We recorded some answers for you to see in our mail tonight. Then, we had reading workshop. At writing workshop time, we learned a new part of style. It was called similes. We learned that we can make a better picture in our reader's head by adding similes to our stories. A simile describes a noun or a verb by adding an adjective or adverb and a noun. (The hot cocoa was as rich and thick as melted chocolate bars). We listened for similes in the Polar Express story. We wrote our own similes at the end of the lesson. We will use them in our "Fantasy Train Ride" story on Wednesday. At the end of the day, we had a center tour. Our new centers are Polar Express centers. In the games center, we are sorting consonant digraph pictures onto train cars and putting contraction words on Santa's reindeer's bells. In the writing center, we are writing a letter to a character in the Polar Express. In the sentence strips center, we are matching nouns and adjectives from the story. Tomorrow, we will have the art center opened!