Wow! What a start to 2013! We have been going non-stop in our room. The kids did a great job transitioning from winter break to school. It actually feels like we never had a break. Here is a look at our busy week ahead:
* Ella is our MVP! We can't wait to learn more about her!
* Congrats to all of our Teachnology participants and volunteers!!!! We are so proud of all of your hard work! Olivia, Christina G, Penny, Michael, Ella, Peyton, Anjali, Christina B, Hannah, Kyle, Ben, Connor, Bridget, and Amey ---you are awesome!!!!
* In reading we will continue to work with asking questions. The kids are learning that asking questions is one of the best ways to elicit new learning. We are so used to waiting for teachers to ask us the questions, however, students are powerful leaders in their reading as well! We also began our small reading groups this week. Our large group exercises work with nonfiction text, while our small reading groups will focus on characters, plot, and theme.
* In grammar this week we will cover verb tense. The kids will practice using past and future tense action verbs.
* We begin our second book of WEX (Writer's Express). Our second book has us work with responding to literature. We will be doing an in-depth study of James and Giant Peach. The students will practice selecting and explaining textual evidence in order to write essays that support conclusions drawn from a work of fiction. This week we are learning to look for examples of passages that show off a certain characteristic of James.
* We will finish up Unit 5 in math this week! The students took a practice test on Monday which can be used as a study guide. We will review the practice test on Tuesday together and then have our test over Unit 5 on Thursday. We will begin Unit 6 (covering division, reference frames, and measures of angles) on Wednesday. Your child will bring home a parent note explaining this new unit along with his/her first study link. Our first lesson covers multiplication and division number stories. This tends to be a very challenging unit for the kids---having a solid base of multiplication and division facts helps tremendously!!!! Keep up the fact practice! We will also do some pretesting for ISAT this week to help me determine what concepts and vocabulary will need to be reviewed with the kids.
* We finished up all of the lessons in our electricity unit last week! We spent some time reviewing indoor and outdoor electrical safety in class. The kids will receive a study guide over our electricity unit Tuesday. We will work on this in class, review together, and test the material either Thursday or Friday this week. After our test, we will show off all of the new information we gained by creating circuit boards in class.
* Thank you to those who have sent in Clorox wipes. If you are still willing to donate a container, that would be great!
* As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know! Have a great week!
