Wow.. the last week before Winter Break! We are still busy this week and hope to get a few things accomplished.
We look forward to seeing you tomorrow for our Writer's Celebration from 2:15 until dismissal. The children will share their poems that they wrote during our poetry unit and their reading response journals. They have completed their first personal narrative and we hope to be able to show you our hip covers when you come tomorrow. My plan is to have another writer's celebration in late January or early February to show off all our narratives and our realistic fiction piece.
This week we will not have a spelling test or any new map work. The children are to study the map that we completed last week on Waterways of the United States. They will be given an enlarged map on Thursday with a list of 18 bodies of water that they will have to identify. If the children have misplaced their map work from last week, I will be prepared to give them another copy tomorrow. However, it will be their responsibility to come and let me know.
We will complete our work with Lesson 7 in Wordly Wise. The children will have a test on these words on Thursday.
We have completed our study of the Florida Native Americans in the classroom and in the computer lab where they have been doing some additional research. On Wednesday, the children will complete a Venn Diagram comparing and contrasting two of the Native American groups. The children will complete a project all designed by them in the classroom that I know will not be completed till after the Winter Break.
We are using our Science book to work on our critical reading skills. The children must read for specific factual information and fill in the blank with the correct word that they find in their reading. There are no word banks so the children really have to read carefully to get the meaning from the text. We have successfully completed one as a class and they were allowed to work together with a reading buddy. My goal is to eventually have the children feel confident in doing this type of reading independently.
On Thursday, the children will do some project work in the morning. Then at about10:15 the children will have a grade level holiday celebration. At 11:00, we will journey up to the Theater to participate in the Holiday Sing. The children will be dismissed at noon.
I know that I have shared this with you before. But I wanted to assure you, in light of the events of last Friday, that my number one concern is making sure that your child is safe and feels safe while here at school. We have procedures in place as an entire school and the children are given opportunities to practice these procedures. It is not my place to have in-depth conversations with your child about what they may have heard or seen over the weekend. Personally I think as the parent, that is your job. You are the one that can control what your child hears and sees and what they don't. However, I will monitor their comments and questions and if I feel your child is having any trouble concentrating at school because of any fear or insecurity that they may have, I will contact you immediately. Also to let you know, I will be using our Morning Meeting in the morning to review the procedures and give them another opportunity to ask questions. If you would like to share this with your child ahead of time tonight, that is fine by me.
I would like to take this time to wish each and everyone a Happy Holiday! May the new year find everyone healthy and happy!
Monday, December 17, 2012
Monday, December 3, 2012
Merry Monday!
Well.. it officially December.... and we're off!
My goal in the next three weeks if to complete two main units of study. The first unit of study that I wish to complete prior to the holidays are Personal Narratives. We had put our narrative writing aside for a while to work on our Poetry unit. You are going to be amazed at the poems that your children have written. Their poems have made wonderful class books that I know you will enjoy seeing. However, each child does have a copy of their poem in the writing workshop binder for safe keeping.
We will also complete our study of the Native Americans indigenous to Florida. Today we began our lesson on the importance of an outline and how to go about creating one. This is a very mature skill and can be challenging for everyone. The lesson to follow on Tuesday and Wednesday helps explain how to organize information from a primary source. I have given the children an outline with certain categories and facts missing. They have to determine what information is missing and complete the outline. We are working on this as a class. You will be able to see this as well when you come to our Author's Celebration on December 18 from 2:15 to 2:50.
Tonight, you will want to look in your child's homework folder. One item that you should find is a mini-adjective booklet. This booklet was used with Chapter 8 in 7*9= Trouble. One cannot expect children to use adjectives, if they are not aware of them in their reading. So they first worked with a reading buddy to read the chapter aloud and out the adjectives in the correct categories. Then we came back together as a group and discussed what they had found or not found. I would encourage the children to continue to be aware that good writing contains descriptive words and they should use them as well in their own writing. As the children read the weekly reading comprehension to you, please stop them to point out good adjectives.
This week, we will begin our next class novel, A Lion To Guard Us. This is an historical fiction book about three children who travel to Jamestown desperately searching for their father. Although Jamestown is not a part of our curriculum, it is in fourth grade. This book is a good book to use to continue our study of characters and how characters can change within a story.
Our spelling list this week included words that have a au and an aw spelling. The words are as follows:
pause, because, author, laundry, auto, August, dawn, drawn, crawl, shawl, brawl, draw, straw, jaw, awful, awkward, awning, squawk, lawyer, haul.
We will complete our Wordly Wise work this week on Lesson 6 and have a test on Friday.
We are working on multiplication word problems in math. Please make sure that your child is reviewing the multiplication math facts 0, 1, 2, and 3 this week. Tomorrow our lesson will be on multiplication arrays. It really does help if the children are confident with these early multiplication facts.
We completed our Comic Life Computer project last week. The children have become quite the Comic Life experts. This week, their poster will come home with a rubric attached. This rubric is comprehensive in that it focuses on the major objectives of this project in an outline of checklist form. Each area was completed reviewed and the children were reminded even again prior to printing, to follow the directions of the project. Each child was even given a checklist of these objectives to have at their computer while they were working. This checklist was to ensure that your child knew the expectation of the project and they could be more independent in helping themselves. The score on the rubric will be reflected in their science grade as well as in the work and study habits portion of the report card.
Again, please make sure that you are signing the reading comprehension activity that is due on Fridays. There were several this week that were not signed. That signature indicates to me that you have listened to your child read this passage.
Our Holiday container is beginning to fill up. Please feel free to send in your packages once you have them ready. Also, we are in the midst of the last contest for Box Tops. We have quite a few already in our little box. But we have until the middle of January to get out hot chocolate and cookie treat. If we win, perhaps we can wear our bedroom slippers that day for fun!!!
My goal in the next three weeks if to complete two main units of study. The first unit of study that I wish to complete prior to the holidays are Personal Narratives. We had put our narrative writing aside for a while to work on our Poetry unit. You are going to be amazed at the poems that your children have written. Their poems have made wonderful class books that I know you will enjoy seeing. However, each child does have a copy of their poem in the writing workshop binder for safe keeping.
We will also complete our study of the Native Americans indigenous to Florida. Today we began our lesson on the importance of an outline and how to go about creating one. This is a very mature skill and can be challenging for everyone. The lesson to follow on Tuesday and Wednesday helps explain how to organize information from a primary source. I have given the children an outline with certain categories and facts missing. They have to determine what information is missing and complete the outline. We are working on this as a class. You will be able to see this as well when you come to our Author's Celebration on December 18 from 2:15 to 2:50.
Tonight, you will want to look in your child's homework folder. One item that you should find is a mini-adjective booklet. This booklet was used with Chapter 8 in 7*9= Trouble. One cannot expect children to use adjectives, if they are not aware of them in their reading. So they first worked with a reading buddy to read the chapter aloud and out the adjectives in the correct categories. Then we came back together as a group and discussed what they had found or not found. I would encourage the children to continue to be aware that good writing contains descriptive words and they should use them as well in their own writing. As the children read the weekly reading comprehension to you, please stop them to point out good adjectives.
This week, we will begin our next class novel, A Lion To Guard Us. This is an historical fiction book about three children who travel to Jamestown desperately searching for their father. Although Jamestown is not a part of our curriculum, it is in fourth grade. This book is a good book to use to continue our study of characters and how characters can change within a story.
Our spelling list this week included words that have a au and an aw spelling. The words are as follows:
pause, because, author, laundry, auto, August, dawn, drawn, crawl, shawl, brawl, draw, straw, jaw, awful, awkward, awning, squawk, lawyer, haul.
We will complete our Wordly Wise work this week on Lesson 6 and have a test on Friday.
We are working on multiplication word problems in math. Please make sure that your child is reviewing the multiplication math facts 0, 1, 2, and 3 this week. Tomorrow our lesson will be on multiplication arrays. It really does help if the children are confident with these early multiplication facts.
We completed our Comic Life Computer project last week. The children have become quite the Comic Life experts. This week, their poster will come home with a rubric attached. This rubric is comprehensive in that it focuses on the major objectives of this project in an outline of checklist form. Each area was completed reviewed and the children were reminded even again prior to printing, to follow the directions of the project. Each child was even given a checklist of these objectives to have at their computer while they were working. This checklist was to ensure that your child knew the expectation of the project and they could be more independent in helping themselves. The score on the rubric will be reflected in their science grade as well as in the work and study habits portion of the report card.
Again, please make sure that you are signing the reading comprehension activity that is due on Fridays. There were several this week that were not signed. That signature indicates to me that you have listened to your child read this passage.
Our Holiday container is beginning to fill up. Please feel free to send in your packages once you have them ready. Also, we are in the midst of the last contest for Box Tops. We have quite a few already in our little box. But we have until the middle of January to get out hot chocolate and cookie treat. If we win, perhaps we can wear our bedroom slippers that day for fun!!!
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