March 23, 2016

Happy Spring!!I wanted to give everyone a quick update before we head off to Spring Break.

Last week was the school wide MDA drive, our class was the top contributor for 3 consecutive days! Thank you to everyone who contributed to this wonderful cause.

This week we also wrapped up The Chocolate Touch. The children have been looking forward to Fridays when they can discuss their thoughts about the book. They have come up with some pretty great ideas and had some wonderful discussions about their ideas. We are still learning how to use "one voice" at a time, they get so excited to add their comments that at times it gets difficult for them to wait their turn. This is part of the process and as we continue to practice they will get better. When we return from spring break we are going to do another novel study with paired fiction and non fiction texts. The book series is called Race the Wild and each story is set in a different location around the world. When we discussed this yesterday the class seemed enthusiastic about trying a new series that no one has ever read before.

We have been using Google Classroom to do a variety of assignments in the classroom. Most recently we have completed a Market slide show and a needs/wants slide show. The students have also completed their last two vocabulary tests in Google Classroom. This platform gives them the opportunity to practice computer skills that they will need to use during the April testing. Your child has their username, password and email address so please have them show you these assignments and check their email. The two vocabulary test grades were emailed back to them so please take the opportunity to check their email with them and view these grades.

As the last quarter approaches many students are running out of supplies at school. Many students need more pencils and glue sticks. Please check with your child to see if there are any more supplies they may  need to finish the school year.

Today marks the end of the third quarter. One date to add to your calendar for next quarter is May 20th, all current events will be due by that date, the sooner they get done the less your child needs to think about it. Over spring break make sure to spend time as a family and enjoying your time together but also make time for reading. Have your child continue to read independently or with you, either way is great!

Have a great Spring Break!

March 7, 2016

This week we will begin One School, One Book! Our book this year is called The Chocolate Touch. One book was handed out for each family at Chippewa School along with a letter explaining the activity and reading schedule. We will be using this as a foundation for our classroom lessons as well. In place of our reading log for the weeks of March 7, March 14 and March 21 the students are going to complete reading extension activities associated with each chapter that they read. On Friday students will be turning in their extension activities instead of a reading log. The first week's activities, that correspond to chapters 1-4, were given to the students today when they were presented with their book. On each sheet I have numbered the activities that they need to complete (1, 2, and 3), they do not need to complete any activities that are not numbered. They will also need to complete one question stem for each chapter on their Socratic Seminar sheet. Each week we will have a discussion about the chapters that we have completed reading. Last week when we had our first Socratic Seminar it was amazing to see how engaged the students were and they how invested they became in the conversation.  This was an activity I thought would, maybe, last 20 minutes with some guidance but it easily lasted 30 minutes and I finally had to sadly end the discussion. Although at times I could feel the frustration from those students who were trying to talk but were not being recognized they soon worked it out as a group and were verbally recognizing when a student wanted to talk. I can't wait to continue this and watch as they grow through this process.

This week we will be finishing up our Math chapter regarding Properties of Multiplication. We will be finished by Wednesday and on Thursday we will review. On Friday we will have the Math Summative test for this chapter.

We will continue our Economics unit in Social Studies. Last week we finished the week discussing economic choices and opportunity cost and this week we started the week with a review of this topic along with some independent practice identifying economic choice and opportunity cost. We will continue this week with Understanding Markets and Making Good Financial Decisions. Please remember that current events are due this Friday.

Draw a picture of your favorite candy and bring it in to Mrs. Shields for 5 bonus tickets!!

February 29, 2016

This week we will be starting Unit 4 in ELA. This week's skills include combining sentences with linking verbs and identifying root words. We have been able to do some word study while working on our vocabulary words and looking for root words along with suffixes and prefixes. We will have both a spelling test and a vocabulary test this week. Spelling packets go home on Monday and need to be returned on Thursday in order to receive full credit. This week we will be reading a chapter book as a class called, Freckle Juice by Judy Bloom. We will be using this book to begin our first Socratic Seminar. A Socratic Seminar is a method of discussion that allows the students to engage in a discussion about their reading. They do not receive answers directly but rather through a series of questioning and discussions with each other they are able to arrive at their answers. As the teacher I am more of a moderator/facilitator rather than the director. The students are expected to come prepared by finishing the assigned reading and developing questions to bring to the discussion. This week we will learn what a Socratic Seminar looks like, what the expectations are and what the rules are they need to follow during the discussions. The focus is on having a respectful conversation that involves thoughtful responses that are derived from the text they are reading. The students have also been practicing all year using post-it notes as a way to note when they are practicing Daily 5 strategies, we will learn another note taking procedure with post it notes they can use while reading that may be helpful during the Socratic Seminar process. 

In Social Studies we are continuing our Economics unit. Last week we talked about consumers and producers as well as goods and services. This week we will be discussing Positive and Negative Incentives as well as Scarcity and Opportunity Cost. By the end of this unit the children will have put together an Economics book of facts that they can use to study for the chapter test.

In Math we are continuing our study of Properties of Multiplications. We will begin this week with the Associative Property and we will move into writing and solving expressions.

A few reminders:

• Please have your child fill out their reading log, it is part of their homework and they should be responsible for it.
• All current events are due on March 11. Any current events turned in after that date will be considered late and will not be given full credit.
• The students will  be assigned one chapter to read in Freckle Juice for homework this week, they may use those minutes on their reading log.