2 down, 1 to go (this week)

I saw a ton more effort today on the research simulation unit of the PARCC. Kudos to the kiddos! After working super hard, Mr. Buss, our Ohio State FEEP student, began his read aloud. He began, Chasing the Falconers by Gordon Korman. It is the first book in the "On the Run" series and so far, they seem engaged. I dislike relinquishing control of my favorite thing to do each day though! I can't wait to read it myself to them on days he's not here--shhhh! :) We also set up our brackets for March Book Madness. Will The Very Hungry Caterpillar beat Scaredy Squirrel?! Will Diary of a Wimpy Kid win against The Watson's Go To Birmingham-1963?! We only completed the Pre-2014 bracket and I've encouraged them to read up on some of the 2014 books so that we can complete that bracket as voting begins next Wednesday. Then, we can cast our votes and see how we do. We looked at the map of classrooms/schools participating and almost all of the continents are playing along! I've posted the site on my Canvas page (ask the kiddos about this) but here is the link if you'd like to check it out yourself. marchbookmadness.weebly.com/ After lunch and recess, we continued with better understanding of decimals by modeling and representing decimals using base-10 blocks, stamps of the blocks and money. We also counted on by tenths or hundredths using calculators. Students showed a much more secure understanding today. We had gym and then came back and completed one more English/Language Arts PARCC practice example of what to expect tomorrow--there was a different rubric so I wanted to be sure and show them what is expected of them.