Good afternoon
For a short week, we certainly accomplished a great deal in Room 15. We started the week with a Totally Awesome Tuesday, where we wrote notes to teachers, administrators and special helpers in our school to remind them how totally awesome they are. Students did a great job being specific about what they appreciated, and the recipients were blown away. It's always great to start the week by making people in our community smile! We had ended last week filling each other's buckets so it only made sense we looked beyond Room 15 to kick our week off in a positive way! This week our focus in math has been on equivalent fractions and we also began to take a look at factors and multiples as we get ready to add and subtract fractions. Students used fraction bars to build many different equivalent fractions and then were able to "play" with an online tool to create equivalent fractions. Here is the link to the site - ask your child to build a few equivalent fractions for you! It's a great site! apps.mathlearningcenter.org/fractions/ We talked about why it's important we learn about equivalent fractions. Students came up with some great examples such as baking - what would they do if a recipe called for 1/2 cup of chocolate bits, but they only had a 1/4 cup for measuring? How many pieces would they need to cut a cake into if they were sharing with 3 friends? What if 4 more friends came? Could they split the pieces evenly? Lots of different scenarios came up and kids were asking great questions! In reading, we continued our work with Non-Fiction Signposts. This week we took a look at Extreme or Absolute Language. When an author may exaggerate to call attention to something or to present a specific point of view. We had great discussions around this. As we continue to look at Non Fiction pieces we will be on the look out for this signpost! We finished up our last historical fiction literature circle. A group of students read The War That Saved My Life. It was so great to hear them summarize their thoughts today and hear them referring to AHA Moments, Again and Again and Contrasts and Contradictions! They are really noticing the fiction signposts and asking probing questions during their discussion groups! Next week we will be starting Number the Stars as a whole class read and discussion book. We will continue to work on comprehension strategies as we learn about a family fleeing from Nazi Occupation. This story is always a favorite each year and I look forward to connections students will make to novels we have already shared. We are also deep into The Year of Billy Miller. Students are enjoying this read aloud which is a bit lighter than the previous few we have read, but great discussions continue. We look forward to having lots of guests in next week during National Read Aloud week in Room 15. It is always great to see kids reaction to the many guest readers we have and to have them listen to the stories you choose to share. If you would like to join in the fun click the link below and sign up for a time that works for your schedule! goo.gl/forms/t22aDnMQz1mXCFTH2 In Science we have been looking at how the Earth's rotation on its axis and it's tilt cause night and day and how it differs all over the world. Through this discussion we have been working on some graphing skills as we looked at and compared hours of daylight in Chicago, Sydney and Nairobi. Ask your child why Nairobi has 12 hours of day and night all year long! In Social Studies, students worked hard all week putting finishing touches on their Explorer trading cards. I will take lots of pictures over the next few days and upload over the weekend to our photo gallery - so be sure to check back! Students finished up their Informative Writing assignments as well this week. They worked in Google Docs to add text features such as headings, bolded words, pictures and captions to bring their articles to life. Next week we will be writing another narrative to check in to be sure we didn't forget any of the many skills we learned earlier this year. Students will have a chance to write about another "small moment". We will then switch gears and began our work with the persuasive essay! This is always a fun unit! As you can see, we remain busy in Room 15, accomplishing much, but also remembering how important our community is! World kindness week is coming up and we will definitely celebrate this in our class and will be sharing our kindesses at home as well !! Thank you for all of the continued support! Be sure to ask your child about equivalent fractions, or about their explorer (they should be able to tell you 2 interesting facts), or about why our days are shorter in the winter than the summer! Have a great weekend! Maura IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBERMonday - Friday - Guest readers in Room 15 ! Monday - Friday - Canned Food drive - bring in canned goods for food pantry Monday - January 28 - Peer Educators from NHS visit Thursday - January 31 - Early Release Day - Professional Development Friday - February 1 - WORLD READ ALOUD DAY
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Good afternoon!
Where does the time go, I cannot believe we are already half way through January! Another busy week in Room 15. As mentioned last week, we finished our class read aloud, so this week I did things a little different and had students vote on our next read aloud. I didn't show them the title or book, but instead read a description of the book and some critiques of the 4 books we would choose from. Students then voted using a google form in Google classroom ! It was a fun way to see what type of story they would like next! We chose The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes. So far we are enjoying it a great deal. It is a much "lighter" story than our last book, but students are already seeing some different messages shared in this book! Billy is a second grader who can be quite humorous at times! We left off with Billy and His friend Ned building dioramas. Be sure to ask your child why they think Billy's father is upset? Make a prediction about what you think will happen next. This week we also began working on NonFiction Signposts. We looked at contrasts and contradictions and read an article about a boy who was a banana picker since the age of 8. We had a great discussion about all of the things the article made us stop and wonder about.. Why was the boy working at 8 years old? Why was he allowed to work 8 hour days? Why didn't he go to school longer? Why didn't he wear safety equipment. Next week we will look at Extreme and Absolute Language and how it can also make us wonder! This week students have been hard at work on a rough draft of an Explorer trading card. Using a tool called Epic on their iPads as well as other research sites, students have been researching to find interesting facts about the explorer they were assigned. They have done a nice job getting their rough drafts done. On Tuesday I will be giving them a piece of white card stock for their final product which is due next Friday. They have a rubric to review as they put their final product together - I am looking for color and attention to detail and cannot wait to see the final results. In Science we continue working on the Earth's Systems. We made models of the moon and used flashlights so we could see how the rotation shows us the different phases. Nice job on our moon journals and don't forget Lunar Eclipse this weekend! Ask your child why a Lunar Eclipse is sometimes called a Blood Moon! We explored this with Mystery Science today! We also learned about time zones and how the rotation of the earth on its axis causes night and day. Next week we will dig in further and look at shadows and the seasons! Lots of great thoughts as we dig into these concepts. In Math we finished up our work with triangles and geometry. Quizzes are in Friday folders for your review. Today we kicked off FRACTIONS! We started today just sharing what we already know and then explored fractions using geometric pieces. A hexagon was equal to 1 whole and then using other pattern blocks and dice we rolled to use triangles (1/6), parallelograms (1/3) and trapezoids (1/2) to make wholes. KIds did a nice job "trading" equivalent fractions. Fractions are often a challenging topic for students. Tuesday morning sessions for the next few weeks we will be spending extra time focused on Fractions. All are welcome! Today we also discussed the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We looked at some strong vocabulary such as segregation, bias, prejudice, riots, protests and doctorate. It was a great afternoon full of rich discussions. Hoping you all have a wonderful long weekend and stay safe and warm in the snow! Best Maura Important Dates to Remember Tuesday, January 22 - Extra Math Help 8:15 - 8:45 am Friday, January 25th - Explorer Trading Cards Due Monday, January 28th - NHS Peer educators visit our class Monday January 28th - Friday, February 1 - National Read Aloud Week celebrated in Room 15 - use this link to sign up for a time to come and read to us! goo.gl/forms/Qb6CSTOVxL8MMvEu1 Happy New Year everyone!
We are off to a great second half of the year! We came back with lots of stories to share and lots of thoughts about what we wanted to focus on during our remaining time together. Instead of writing New Year's Resolutions this year, we talked about ONE WORD we could use to refer to for our work at school, home and at any extra curricular sports/arts that we are involved in. Students have been working on designing a poster of their "one word" that they will be bringing home to put in their rooms to remind themselves daily of their choice. Words such as focus, motivated, perseverance, determined are just a few of the examples of the awesome words we came up with! We will be referencing our one words throughout the rest of our year together! Please ask your child about their word! Also ask them how they will "live" their word at school, at home, on the playing field etc. In Math we came back and reviewed Volume for a few days then took an assessment to see how much we have learned. Rectangular prisms that are combined were tricky for some, but overall students did a great job and we will continue to spiral back and review concepts of Volume, Area and Perimeter as we work with our Math menus. This week and next our focus is Geometry. Right now we have been working on polygons and then spent a few days focused on quadrilaterals. Students are learning how to look at angle measurement and whether quadrilaterals have parallel sides to figure out what the specific name of the shape is.. We have been focused on rectangles, squares, trapezoids, rhombuses and parallelograms. Check out our photo gallery to see some pictures of students playing "Classify It" - a game of quadrilateral names. Next week we will be looking at the different types of triangles: acute, obtuse, scalene,right and continuing our look at angles and types of lines (parallel, perpendicular and even some symmetry). In Reading we have finished up our work with the Fiction SignPosts. Last week we looked at an excerpt from Hatchet and learned about a Signpost called Again and Again. When a writer repeats a word, phrase or action, what does it make us wonder? We had some great conversations and now have a few students reading Hatchet as they were hooked after reading the excerpts! This week we looked at another signpost called a Memory Moment. When a writer stops the action in a story and thinks back about a memory, why do they do this? Does it tell us something about the character or the theme? These are places where we want to stop and ask ourselves some questions as we read so we connect even deeper to our reading. Students are now looking for these signposts during their independent reading time and jotting down notes on post its when they do! I have truly enjoyed watching them get lost in their books again this past week. We have students VERY excited about the books they are reading. They have also been on the edge of their seats all week as we have finished up reading Dusti Bowling's novel, The Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus. This is an incredible story about a girl with a disability and how her friendships with others change her and the community around them. Students were really excited to hear the sequel will be out September 2019 called Momentous Events in the Life of a Cactus. (I already pre-ordered it for my class next year - this book was THAT good!) Be sure to ask your child about Aven and her story. What did she teach them and others about overcoming obstacles and kindness? I was sad to see this book come to an end, but I can't wait to see what they think of our next read aloud and loved that the room broke out in applause but with sad faces that it was over!! In writing we are working on Informative Writing. Students came up with a list of ideas of subjects they knew something about, something they could teach someone else. We have begun drafting and will be going through the formal editing process as we did with our narratives. Students are deciding what Non Fiction text features they want to use in their writing to make it come to life for the reader. I can't wait to see what they do! We have also continued working on our computer skills by using google classroom to look at articles and then respond via a google form about how text features helped them, and perhaps other text features that could be added! In Social Studies, we started looking at some of the Early European Explorers. Students worked independently and then with partners to look at specific explorers to find out who sponsored their journey, what their motive was, what route they took, dates of exploration as well as the impact they had. Next week we will be starting a project where students will choose one explorer to research further. They will be making a trading card (like a baseball card) that gives the specifics of their explorer. More details to come on Monday! In Science, we are really digging into Moon Phases and how the Moon Phases impact the tides. Students have been doing a great job on their moon journals, the weather hasn't been all that cooperative, but by using the internet to gather information, I have been impressed with the details they have provided. Keep up the great work! We had some fun this afternoon creating our own models of the phases from New Moon, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous to Full Moon and then to the Waning Gibbous, Third Quarter and Waning Crescent to complete the cycle. We are almost to our First Quarter Moon (January 14th!), will be looking for some great details in their journals as the moon continues to get brighter in the night sky! We also have a lunar eclipse coming up! I attached some information to the email sent with the newsletter! Lots going on as you can see! In the midst of all of this hard work, we are also starting to put together our thoughts for the Kindness Rocks Project! I can't wait to share students responses with you when we are done! As always, thank you for your continued support! A shout out to all the students who made it in for extra math this week! It's tough to get back into the swing of things after break and I was really proud of their effort. Sessions will remain every Tuesday 8:15-8:45am for all who want to attend. Some Questions to ask:
Maura Important Dates to Remember:
Variety Show Practice Grades 3-5 (3:20-5pm)
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June 2019
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