Jonathan gained additional practice making a 10 to add single and two digit numbers. He applied different strategies to solve several problems in his Ready Classroom math workbook, using number bonds, the 'make a ten' strategy, and counting with his fingers. He also had to determine the validity of equations by circling the correct answer. Jonathan was able to show and explain his work and worked independently.

We began working on 3 way coordination by having the hands and right foot play different, but related, rhythms.

Language Arts: After our daily language review, we read the book, The Polar Bear Son An Inuit Tale by Lydia Dabovich. This sweet story tells of an old woman who raises a polar bear and then releases him to save his life. This is a source text for Jonathan’s iReady textbook. In that textbook, we read about how authors use words to tell and words to show how a character feels. This helps us understand characters and their actions. We then used page 24 from our story to find words that show how the woman feels and then interpret from those words, how she is feeling. For word work today, we watched the Brain Pop Jr. learning video. Jonathan scored a 4/5 on the easy quiz and a 5/5 on the hard quiz. We then repeated our picture sort from the other day for short a and long a words. Jonathan improved 18/20 today and questioned himself on two or three other words. For writing today, Jonathan continued the publishing process of his small moment story about Christmas Day. He worked on illustrating his four pages and also created a cover for his story. In our revisions, we looked at making sure the illustrations match the text. Next, we read a chapter from our chapter novel, Stink The Incredible Shrinking Kid. In this chapter, we read about Stink’s favorite president, James Madison. Lastly, we finished up our session with a fun Word Ladder! This activity reinforces phonics, spelling, and grammar skills. We climbed the ladder reading clues and making slight modifications to each word to match the target. We worked from boat and through ten changes, we ended up at plane! Religion: Today we discussed that a sacrament is a special sign given to us by Jesus. We went through the seven sacraments and discussed each. These sacraments include Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, and Penance and Reconciliation.

Jonathan was given a ball of tin foil, some clay and instructed to place the clay over the tinfoil. Once the tinfoil was covered we shaped it to become the body of his Pikachu character. Jonathan and I continued the same process for the head of his character. I walked Jonathan through twisting armature wire to create a neck. Jonathan used additional clay to cover the armature wire.

Basic drum technique: Gripping the sticks and striking the drum.

Jonathan demonstrated a good understanding of scientific concepts learned thus far. Today, we explored the question: Why is it hot in the summer? Jonathan demonstrated good critical thinking skills in his answers and completed an activity sheet utilizing new vocabulary (ie., axis, orbit). We used an actual globe to demonstrate how the earth tilts and rotates on its axis and orbits around the sun.

Jonathan took a quiz today, which assessed his knowledge in material reviewed the past two weeks since beginning Batt. It primarily assessed his understanding and application of the ten strategy and number bonds. Jonathan completed the assessment with ease, expediency, and confidence. He achieved a perfect score on it and commented, "either I am very good at it or it was very easy." The quizzes were prepared by Jonathan's teacher.

Jonathan answered questions about the make-up of the moon and we examined whether or not anything can live on the moon, and why. Jonathan demonstrated good critical thinking skills when queried. He took a short quiz assessing his understanding of material learned thus far and got all the answers correct 12 out of 12 correct).

Jonathan is continuing to learn to use the 'make a 10 strategy' to add 2 numbers. He is comfortable exploring and trying out alternative strategies, such as using counters, his fingers, or number bonds to make a 10. Jonathan then worked on problems to practice his skills and newly acquired knowledge and to reinforce emergent gains noted.

Language Arts: In his iReady text, we began Unit 3 entitled Craft and Structure in Literature. We read about how authors use special words to tell how people or animals feel. We looked at a provided picture and found feeling words to use to describe the drawing. He then matched the senses words to the appropriate picture. Next, we enjoyed the chapter, Stinkerbell, Shinkerbell in our novel, Stink The Incredible Shrinking Kid. Shrink and Judy accidentally let the class pet, Newton the newt go down the sink drain and they turned on the garbage disposal! We discussed figurative language used in the text such as “get cold feet” and “go back to the drawing board”. To further our discussion on nouns, we watched the Brain Pop Jr. learning video on plural nouns. Jonathan scored on the 4/5 easy quiz and 5/5 on the hard quiz. For writing today, Jonathan began the publishing process of his small moment story about Christmas Day. Using the version from yesterday in which we did our revisions and edits, Jonathan rewrote all four pages of his story incorporating the changes. Finally, to wrap up our day, Jonathan completed a little more diagnostic work on IXL to fully determines activities for growth. Religion: We continued in the We Believe textbook by starting with a review of our song from yesterday, We Celebrate with Joy. We read about ways we’d celebrate a special person coming to visit. Jonathan used his creativity to color the special words used in the prayers “Alleluia” and “Amen”. We read a prayer of thanks and Jonathan drew a picture of himself worshiping God with his parish.