I hope you all had a wonderful winter break. We are now back in full swing and the kids have been working hard this week. We have started our reading groups every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday during our Language Arts time. The children seem to enjoy the smaller group setting with more opportunities to have their voices heard. Mrs. Stock works with half of the class in order to help meet the different needs of the children.
If your child is working with Mrs. Stock he/she will be working with the Great Books curriculum. This is a reading and discussion program designed to build critical thinking skills and motivate children to higher levels of achievement. It is built on outstanding literature and creates exciting and challenging learning environments that empower students to take ownership of their learning. This week Mrs. Stock and her group read a poem entitled The Cat of Cats to introduce the first story called The Master Cat. Students identified adjectives and character traits of the cat in the poem. Students discussed similes, since the cat was described as being "sleek as jam." After reading the story, students discussed a few story elements and also compared the cat in the poem to the cat in the story Students will continue to work with this story next week.
If your child is working with me, we are focusing on basic reading skills that will aide in reading comprehension and communication. We will be reading short passages in both fiction and nonfiction works in order to practice the skills worked on in class. This week we discussed performance anxiety and goals, basic tips for communicating knowledge on assessments, and the breaking of words into syllables and how that helps us to read individual words and understand word meaning.
We also started Writer’s Workshop in full force. We have discussed the writing process and the children have begun drafting a self-selected work. Each session of Writer’s Workshop begins with a “mini-lesson” on a writing skill followed by independent writing and conferencing time. The workshop is concluded with “author’s chair.” This is a time in which children can share their writing and receive feedback from the class.
In science we were introduced to natural resources and “mined” for raisins in oatmeal raisin cookies. The children developed hypotheses of whether or not they thought they could mine the raisins without destroying the cookie. We also discussed renewable and nonrenewable natural resources.
In math we started our unit on multiplication focusing on using arrays and were introduced to division. Please continue to do Mad Minutes at home and a daily review of the fact family. For example for this week’s fact family of 8, 5 & 13 you would ask your child... What is 13-8, 13-5, 5+8 and 8+5?
On Thursday we will have a Unit 1 English test covering sentences and nouns. Your child’s homework in English next week will be based on the individual areas that he/she needs to review.
The class earned 15 minutes of free time this Friday. Each minute is earned by being responsible as a class which might include walking down the hall quietly, working independently, following directions.... The last point was earned for everyone turning their homework. Yeah! We are running low on tissues and would appreciate if you would be willing to send in a box or two. Thanks!
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