Speaking of fantastic...your kids are awesome. We have had such a great week....read on to find out more...
We started off on Monday participating in a major planting endeavor! We helped Mr. Esko's class plant 75 trees on our property...we planted half of them in the new Bioswale area near the firehall parking lot...and the other half we planted back behind the wetlands, near the wildflower meadow...there were two biologists, three teachers, a couple parents, and about 80 kids...it was a ton of fun, and the kids worked beautifully together in cooperative groups. I took a bunch of pictures that I will compile over the weekend into a slideshow...
The rest of this week has been just as good. We have been working with the Junior Great Books series...this series uses excellent literature to teach students to delve deep into the meaning of the stories...it uses the Shared Inquiry approach and the students are charged with answering questions using examples from the passage to support their thinking, and then we have in depth discussions where the kids can agree and disagree with each other in a very mature conversation...I have been BOWLED over by their ability to discuss literature. I have looked forward to every day and hearing their brilliant minds take apart the passages to make sense of them. We have also spent some time looking at stories told in third person vs. first person, and talked about the effects of the storytelling when either perspective is used. We took our own silent reading books and read passages from them to determine from which perspective their stories were being told.
In Writer's Workshop, I'm pleased to say, that I have conferenced with almost the ENTIRE class on their first published piece! Getting to the point of publishing is quite a process and most of the kids have done an outstanding job using the "pit stops" to help improve their writing. Each "pit stop" is designed to have them look at their piece from a "different set of eyes" to find new ways to enhance their writing. The published pieces are hanging in the classroom for the students to read whenever they choose.
We have started a new unit in Social Studies. Our unit focuses on Economics and is one of my very favorite units. More to come on that next week!
In Math we have been perfecting our multiplication, working with word problems, and delving into division...and then Wednesday, we did something I haven't done with my class before. I had given a quiz and was disappointed in the outcome...so I taught them how to make "test corrections"...every student who scored below a B was asked to complete test corrections to improve their grade. Those quizzes will come home today. Most of the kids made errors in following directions. In upper grades, your quiz score is usually your quiz score...but I feel like this is a transition year and it is important for the kids to 1. be able to show what they know, and 2. learn from their errors...the test corrections will be attached to the quizzes, so that you can review them together. The final grade is an average of the quiz score and the test corrections. We will spend next week solely on division and then be ready for the Quarter 1 post test (yes, I know, a little late...but in my world...better late than never!!)
NEXT WEEK IS AMERICAN EDUCATION WEEK...
WOULD YOU LIKE TO COME IN AND
READ YOUR FAVORITE STORY TO OUR CLASS!?!?
Our school is doing lots of really neat things next week to celebrate American Education Week...and one of the things I'd like to do is invite any and all parents (or grandparents!!) into the classroom next week to read a favorite story or chapter from the story. Kids love to be read to and this is a great opportunity to visit our classroom and share your love for literature! Please email me and let me know if you're interested...give me the day you'd like to visit, times that would work for you, and a book you'd like to share. I'll send a confirmation email to you to let you know we'll be expecting you!!
SPEAKING OF GRANDPARENTS...it was so fun meeting so many grandparents this week! And for the grandparents that came Friday...please forgive me for being in PJs!! But teachers NEVER pass up the opportunity to wear our PJs for the day!! ;-) If you weren't able to come in for the breakfast, but want to visit sometime, just throw me an email and we can make that happen.
Have a great weekend...I think Mr. Winter is on his way...
