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!!