I hope this note finds you well in the midst of all of these snowstorms! It was a pleasure seeing many of you Friday for our area "Dream Living Room" activity. This kids had a great time. Please read below for information pertaining to this week.
INFORMATION/EVENTS
- I am excited to announce that Hannah Ticoll is joining our class as an intern from Teacher's College this semester! She will formally introduce herself on the blog sometime in the upcoming week. We are so thrilled to have her!
- This Thursday we are going to the Town Hall Theater to see The Urban Bush Women perform. Please send back permission slips by Wednesday, and send me an email if you are interested in chaperoning.
- This month our Family Friday is taking place on February 27th. We are watching our third grade students perform their own African Dances with Adi, a teacher who has been working with us for the past 5 weeks.
- Please have students practice their African Dance song once each night. I have emailed the song to all families, and it can be played over a phone or computer for students to practice to.
PORTFOLIOS
Portfolios and report cards were sent home this past Friday. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me. When assigning grades, I considered and averaged the following assessments:
Reading: Independent reading level, reading notebook
Writing: Published pieces, writing notebook
Math: Post Assessments, Most recent pre-assessment (Area), and other benchmark assessments
Social Studies: Performance tasks and notebook
Please return all Portfolios by February break, as Parent Teacher Conferences are right around the corner!
HOMEWORK THIS WEEK
Monday: Regular reading and jotting, math (adding and subtracting rectangles to find area)
Tuesday: Regular reading and jotting, math (perimeter), sort last week's word in purple word study workbook, study for spelling test
Wednesday: Regular reading and jotting, math (perimeter), work on new country menu option
Thursday: Regular reading and jotting, math (perimeter), work on new country menu option
Friday: Regular reading and jotting, math (perimeter), work on new country menu option
CURRICULUM
Reading: After researching Chinese persona characters for the past two weeks students had time to role play and represent their characters today. This week is the last week in our current unit, and we started bend 2 today. Now that students are experts at researching about what life is like in another country, they are now reading in new research teams based on other countries of interest. Students chose between Japan, Italy, France, Kenya, Australia, Egypt, and Mexico. Over the next 7 days they will experience the same researching process, but this time they are setting their own work plans and will create their own persona characters (instead of me assigning them).
Writing: Last week we launched our next writing unit- Baby Literary Essay. In this unit students are taking the same idea behind persuasive essay (coming up with a bold claim and supporting reasons), but this time they are focusing on lasting impressions and lessons left on them after reading a text. Throughout this unit we will read a variety of amazing read alouds (Those Shoes, The Paper Bag Princess, The Can Man, Spaghetti, The Pet, One Green Apple) and pull out the big ideas that left us thinking. We will rehearse our essays with partners, create many flashdrafts, and then pick our favorite essay to take through the writing process. This work mirrors our expectations of reading responses, which we hope to move the students into in the upcoming weeks as part of their jotting experience.
Math: After learning many ways to calculate area, this week we are shifting gear and examining calculating perimeter. We will look at attributes of shapes as a means to help us find missing sides.
Social Studies: Today we engaged in a minilesson on the Yangzte River, and throughout the rest of the week we will visit at least two more China Centers.
Thanks for your ongoing support!
Aimee Bouchard
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