Friends

     Our latest writing project was to write a description about a friend.  I was so happy that some of the children chose someone from the class to describe and touched that a few chose to describe their dads.  We work so hard to complete these projects; the process takes weeks.  They are hanging on the lockers now and I see many students from the other classes stopping to read the paragraphs.  Below are some photos.

Before I took the "Fractured Pumpkins" down I wanted to get a photo of our "pumpkin patch".  The pumpkin project wasn't just a fun art activity, the students had to read and follow written directions in order to complete them.  They cut them apart and then glued them back together like a puzzle.  I think they have great personalities!

In ELA we learned about sequencing events,  proper nouns, abbreviations, and homophones.  We also practiced writing skills by matching topic sentences with details. 
In Math we've dived right into double digit addition with regrouping.  I know the first day was frustrating for some but I was elated to hear one student say today, "This is lots of fun now that I know how to do it!"  Music to a teacher's ears!  Heads up: our +9's test will be on Tuesday.
Social Studies was a lot of fun this week.  We've been learning about belonging to a community and being a good citizen with our Jr. Achievement volunteer and by reading our S.S. text.  This week we had a second visitor to talk to us about being a good citizen by voting and running for office.  Ken Genewick, City of Lockport 5th ward alderman, came in to talk to the students on Election Day.  It was a great way to kick off our own voting at DeSales.  Each student was able to cast a ballot to select a lunch and his/her favorite saint.  It was a close race but pizza and St. Nicholas won out.

Mr. Genewick talking to the class.

We invited Alderman Genewick to cast his own ballot.

We are finishing up the week with Fun Friday.  We will view a ppt. about Veteran's Day and make Christmas cards for veterans that are overseas.  We will also practice math facts with Mathmagician and Mathlines.  If you haven't used those sites to help your child learn the math facts, I encourage you to.  We are going to practice using adjectives with a leaf project and start a cornucopia fashioned with ripped paper.  You will see photos on a future blog. :-)