Solar System Week

Our theme this week is solar system. Our word of the day today was "read". You can pronounce it two different way, but they both are verbs that mean to say words in a book. It was a rule follower when you pronounce it in it's present tense form. There were two homonyms - reed, red. It can also be someone's name. Later in the morning, we had reading workshop and Mrs. Myers kept reading with us one at a time. At 11:00, we practiced solar system poems and songs and also played word of the day spelling games. After lunch today, we got into groups for different parts of the solar system. Some of us are planet groups. Each group had a reader, reporter, writer, and illustrator. We watched short DVD about the solar system and the planets. Then, we worked in our groups to record three facts we learned about our own groups' part. Next, we read a fiction story called Poor Pluto. It taught us that Pluto is no longer considered a planet. Then, we did a nonfiction book activity. First, we named the 5 nonfiction story parts (table of contents, caption, heading, glossary, index). Next, we matched the parts to what their job is. Then, we matched the parts of the nonfiction book to our groups. Last, we read part of the book, The Book of Planets. We learned a little bit about Mars and the size of planets. We have to chunk what we want to learn, when we are reading nonfiction, so our brain can focus and remember it. For fun, we read another fiction space story called, The Soccer Mom from Outer Space. Mrs. Chase came for a guest lesson, while Mrs. Myers read with us in the hallway. At the end of the day, we had phys. ed.