Snowy Saturday...

Hello to my favorite students' families...are you staying warm?

We had a great week...here's how it all went down...

Math
We are heavy into geometry...we discovered the difference between prisms and pyramids, cones and cylinders, we worked with bases, faces, vertices, edges...we used pattern blocks to show transformations (slides), rotations (turns), and reflections (flips)...and then traced those pattern block shapes to determine perimeter measuring to the closest centimeter...this was all after our measurement of angles using protractors...the kids love geometry...and so do I! We are going to experiment with finding the area of irregular shapes in the few days we have left before winter break (hopefully!?!).

Language Arts
Our language arts curriculum focuses on reading Socical Studies texts...identifying text features of non-fiction and determining importance when reading non-fiction. I like to bring in biographies during this part of Language Arts. They're reading enough SS text during Social Studies...so we're determining importance when reading biographies. This past week each child was allowed to choose between Thomas Alva Edison and Louis Braille. They are reading and note-taking...determining what is important in each chapter. They will be synthesizing this information in the beginning of January, when our focus will turn to writing multi-paragraph reports. This is all preparation for a fun project I call, The Wills Wax Museum. Each child will be choosing a person who has made a positive impact on our country...someone who has worked for the common good. They will research this person using articles from the computer, books from the media center, and of course, their almighty schema! They will produce a multi-paragraph biography of their important person, and then YOU will be invited to visit our museum as your child BECOMES that important person. Many of the students who were in the 2nd grade magnet class came to our museum last year, so they are already excited about the prospect of this project. There is a lot of writing that goes into this biography study...hence the reason I have been pushing writing paragraphs down your child's throat...in order to move to multi-paragraph, they MUST be able to write a solid paragraph...and I'm happy to say...they're ready! I won't know the date for our museum for awhile...it depends on our schedule...but I can tell you that I will give you at least three weeks notice.

Social Studies
This unit has us exploring the diversity of our community...in order to do this...we had to go back to how our country became so diverse...so, as you know, we discussed how each of our families came to America. We have continued to discuss diversity by moving into the study of cultures and what each individual culture has contributed to our country. This week, each table group took a different topic and became the "masters of that topic"...they read a non-fiction piece, determined what was important, constructed a teaching poster, and presented to the class. We learned that a culture is a group of people that have similar traditions, languages, clothing, and holidays that they celebrate. The kids did a great job and continue to improve in oral communication.

As I type "they" say this storm is stalling. Oh dear. Last time Connor measured outside we were already at 14 inches...stalling?! That could be bad news....I can't imagine not seeing your kids next week...but if it keeps snowing...who knows what will happen!

Stay warm, have fun, and I will hopefully see 20 of my very favorite people BEFORE winter break!