- Tomorrow is Family Friday! Our event/activity is the third grade African Dance performance. The show will start at 9:05- please have students arrive by 8:50 in costume so that we can help them get set up for the show. It's going to be amazing!
- I am forwarding a very important email from Mr. Bender today regarding the upcoming state exams. A family curriculum connection is taking place Wednesday March 1st.
- Tomorrow I am posting a parent teacher conference sign up for our March conferences. I will email when the link is ready!
CURRICULUM
**The week after break we are starting "marathon training" for the state exams. There will be a lot more information to come. PS 11's approach to test preparation is that our work from throughout the year transfers to work leading up to the test. We believe the kids will be calm, confident, and ready after our "training sessions." We have a marathon theme to help make this work fun and exciting.
Reading- Students have been working in character book clubs for the past two weeks. As a group they are carefully studying their main character as well as influencing secondary characters, and using elements of story mountains to predict and anticipate the structure of their stories. Groups develop a work plan each day and jot in preparation for a club discussion. We will continue this work through "marathon training."
Writing- Students are in the midst of a "Baby Literary Essay" unit, which is like a reading response in disguise! Students reflect on texts and develop a bold claim, and then mine through the text looking for evidence to support their theory. We are focusing on crafting clear and powerful introductions and are balancing details with explanations. This work will be very beneficial when we start to explore short and extended responses during our marathon training.
Math- After learning strategies to calculate the area and perimeter of quadrilaterals and other rectilinear shapes, students from both math groups have been recruited to help Ms. Mackenzie and I design blueprints showing the best way to arrange furniture in our classrooms. Students are putting together the draft of a plan, and will submit a final blueprint after getting feedback from their math partners. If students would like to work on this over break as a HOP option, they will be given the opportunity to do so. The most efficient blue print will be tried out by the end of the school year!
Social Studies- After researching different weather hazards as part of our Empatico pilot program, students have committed to a specific weather hazard and will brainstorm possible solutions to make the lives of people that face that hazard better. They are working with a partner school in Arkansas and offering feedback and suggestions to each out. Yesterday we connected synchronously with other third graders and it was very interesting to hear about their weather experiences.
