Today we did some more benchmark testing. The material is pretty difficult, because much of it is learned throughout the year and has not yet been introduced. The students did a great job focusing and following directions! Hopefully we can get it finished up tomorrow :) 

In reading, the word syllable was introduced. We talked about how words are like puzzles, made up of different parts. I said a word, and the students clapped out its syllables (i.e cupcake. cup....cake. cupcake). They did a great job listening and clapping. The letter R was introduced. Students came up to the smartboard and helped me practice writing a lower case and uppercase r. Then we did an activity where they got another chance to practice their r's and also pick out words that start with r. The words differ, stalking, and mellow were briefly introduced for our weekly robust vocabulary. Then we touched on the word label, and when and where we use labels (on our notebooks, on our desks, to describe a drawing).


We took a quick brain break and then went right into math. The book Anno's Counting Book was revisited, in order to establish links between math and the real world. We also talked about how we will now be focusing on numbers 6-10. We used our counting mats to build concepts of these numbers, and then brought out our graphs to compare. 


The kids were quite tired after all this thinking, so we ate a quick snack and listened to a story. Then it was time to head home.