Fall is here!

I found this tri-colored mum for just $5.99 at a roadside stand. 

I have seen others like it going for $16.99!

If you are a student reading this, post a comment to tell me how much money I saved?

I just might have to go back and get another one! :)

Have you ever thought about how you think? 

or why you are thinking what you are thinking?

As crazy as that sounds, we are learning that Metacognition (thinking about your thinking) is what makes us better learners and readers!

What is REAL reading?

This week we learned that real reading happens when you read the words of text in a story AND you think about what the words are telling you! It is important to understand what you are reading!

Text + Thinking = REAL reading 

What makes a good salad?

Lots of lettuce & tomatoes of course!

Students made a REAL reading salad full of lettuce (Thinking) and tomatoes (text)!

We have learned many new math classroom routines and games. While learning our combinations of 10, we played the Math Investigations card game called Make 10.

There are lots of ways to Make 10! We learned about the commutative property of addition and know that 3+7=10 therefore 7+3=10.



Setting the game up precisely is very important! 4 rows of cards with 5 cards in each row!

We also learned how to write out counting strips. I think the highest someone got was 147!

Another Math Investigations game is called Cover & Count. We used geometric blocks to cover a shape 5 different ways. We recorded the type of blocks used and the number of each block.

So many new friends to learn about! To build our classroom community, we each brought in a "Me" bag to present to the class. Inside the bags were items that told about the students' interests, hobbies, families, and experiences. After we each presented our bag to the class, we set up our desk area to showcase our artifacts. 

Then we toured the room and learned more about our friends. 

During Writer's Workshop, we made a list of the contents of our "Me" bags. We will keep these lists in our writing folder to help us with ideas to write about in our writer's notebooks. 

We had a super first few days of school together! 

The students were introduced to our classroom blog

 and completed this shared writing assignment:

At school...

we see our friends and learn something new!   Mrs. Luft
I like PE because it teaches me gymnastics.  Aries
I get to see my kind friends who always put a smile on my face! Trevor
I like to play football with my friends.  Cal
I like to read funny stories! Austin S.
I saw my friends and new people. I love to go to PE because we play basketball there! Damarius
I like Art because I am an artist! Ryan
I love my teacher because she is sweet. Savannah
I love going to Library because I can read there. Meghan
I like Math because Math is really fun! Jeffrey
I like learning PE. Liam
I like to go to the gym because I like to see Mrs. Nesbitt! Taylor
I like science because you get to do experiments! Dalton
I like to PE and to play games outside. Arriyanna
I like reading because it is quiet in the classroom so it won't hurt my ears. Kiara
I went to school to go to gym. I went on the playground. Austin M.
I like Art because you color and paint. I like PE and Music and Computer Lab and Math and working so much. Aiyana
we go to lunch. I like lunch because I like to see my BFF's.  Aaliyah
I like PE because it is fun.  Alyssa
I love to read because it gets quiet.  Ronan
I like PE because it is fun. I like Art because we get to paint. I like technology because we get to type on the computer. I like Music because you get to play the instruments.  Jake