Henry continued with the geography lesson today. He did a word scramble where he looked at a map and had to unscramble the words and write the name of the landform, country, or continent.

Continued .. Marcos is a scribe in ancient Mesopotamia and has been put in charge of creating a news broadcast about the activities of the gods. Using online sources and background knowledge of ancient Mesopotamian spiritual beliefs, he will create a Powerpoint presentation about the activities of the main gods.

We reviewed the purpose of 4 types of general use maps. Then we explored examples of Physical, relief, political, and road maps. Next we identified elevations and terrain in topographic maps.

Henry was absent today.

Henry was absent today. We would have continued working on geography.

This morning we read a fun book called, When I Grow Up by Mike Berenstain. Brother and Sister Bear go on a Bear Country job tour. From firefighter to artist and farmer to astronaut - there are so many careers to explore! We reviewed our materials on responsibility. As we worked through the assessment, we continued to work on expanding his language skills from just "be nice" and "be helpful" to provide more specific details. We talked about ways to work out problems including voting, sharing, and taking turns. We matched pictures of community helpers to match their job descriptions. We completed a fill in the blank sentence, "A (firefighter) is responsible for (putting out fires)." Today I put more of the demand for sounding out and writing the words on Danny. This is taking a step up the difficulty ladder to aid him in gaining more ownership of progressing his knowledge and use of sounds. Danny drew a picture of a firefighter. He scored a 11/12 on this assessment. In continuing our discussion on qualities that make good citizens, we read the book, Courage, by Bernard Waber. We read about people facing various situations that require courage. Courage is needed for the simple things like trying a new vegetable without making a yucky face or introducing yourself to someone new, to the more challenging things like sleeping without a nightlight or jumping off the high diving board. We colored and added the flip character for courage to Danny's interactive notebook. The sentence we added about courage was about, "Being brave and trying new things."

This morning, Danny and I continued discussing responsibility. In his Florida Studies Weekly series, we explored our I Am Responsible packet. We examined ways that we are responsible in various settings. To be responsible in the classroom, we said that Danny would follow directions and listen. At home, Danny will be responsible by putting his dirty clothes in the basket and cleaning up his toys. He can be responsible at the playground by being safe and sharing. Finally, in the community, he can be nice to others and throw trash in the garbage can. Many of Danny's responses were just "be nice" and "be helpful", but he couldn't add much more. We worked together to expand his responses and develop the language needed for more specific responses. Our work also focused on problem solving. We discussed fairness, and the use of voting and discussion to make decisions. We were given a scenario in which two children wanted to use the computer. We read through various examples of ways to solve the problem and decided which were appropriate. To further practice with the vocabulary, we completed fill in the blank sentences using the appropriate words. Finally, we played a game in which we rolled the dice to execute a conflict resolution strategy just based on a random dice roll. We discussed if that was a good strategy for the specific conflict and if not, what might work better. At home: it would helpful to practice the strategy of taking a vote to help with a decision. We ended our session by completing the Community Helpers from A to Z book that we started yesterday. We read about various roles from M to Z which included mail carriers, pharmacists, and zookeepers.

Henry continued his geography lesson today. We read an article together on the geography of the Earth and went through the seven continents, the five oceans, the equator, the prime meridian, and latitude and longitude. We also continued discussing the differences in political and physical maps as well as map features such a a scale, compass rose, and a legend. After the reading, he answered comprehension questions about the article.

This morning we continued discussing qualities of a good citizen. Our focus today was on responsibility. We read, Arthur's Pet Business by Marc Brown. In this sweet story, Arthur wants a puppy and his parents agree that he can have one if he demonstrates responsibility. Therefore, Arthur opens his own business and does earn his puppy. We discussed various scenarios related to Danny's world and Danny answered yes or no as to if it described responsible behavior or not. These included things such as doing his work and cleaning his room. We used realistic coloring to add the flip picture for responsibility to his interactive notebook. He worked together to write that responsibility means: Taking care of things and doing my work. Next, we watched a Brain Pop Jr learning video about Community Helpers. In this video we saw a variety of individuals that work in the community and about their roles. We saw that some people keep us safe such as crossing guards, police, and firefighters. Some helpers help the community run such as sanitation workers, the mayor, and letter carriers. Additionally, we have helpers for retail services and those who help keep us healthy like doctors and the dentist. Danny scored 4/5 on the follow up quiz. We also learned that WE are community helpers who help by following the rules, cleaning up, and working together to keep our neighborhood clean and safe. We ended our session with the nonfiction text, Community Helpers from A to Z by Bobbie Kalman. This book presents various helpers and their roles in an A-Z format. We read helpers A - L (including agricultural workers, doctors, and librarian) and will read more tomorrow.

Henry began with an overview of fifth grade social studies today and we discussed what he will be learning this year. We began a unit on geography and went over the difference in political and physical geography and looked at different maps that represent each. We talked about how a political map shows the capitals and large cities and the physical map shows the different geography and landforms such as mountains, rivers, and valleys. We discussed different landforms in the United States such as the Rocky Mountains, the Appalachian Mountains, the Great Lakes, and rivers such as the Missouri, Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Hudson, Ohio, Rio Grande, and Colorado. He looked at a map and found each of these and played an interactive game where he identified each landform on a map. He did a fantastic job of improving his score and identifying more places correctly each time he played the game.