Weekly Update

Dear Families,
It is getting cold out there! We have recess outside everyday (except for when it is raining or the weather gets too cold in the winder-time) so please remember to send your child to school with appropriate clothing.  Thicker jackets, fleece shirts and sweatshirts are great for outdoor play.  Your child can always keep extra clothing in his/her locker.  Some families also keep an extra pair of sneakers in their for PE days or rainy days.  Thank you.

This week, all students participated in various podcasting ventures in our reader's workshop.  We had the help of Ms. Wright and Ms. Davis, who visited our classroom to help get us going.  Podcasting helps us focus on our fluency when we're reading.  The students record their reading and listen carefully after the recording has finished.  The students then reflect on the reading and sets a new personal goal for future reading.  A goal might be to pay closer attention to punctuation and make sure the reading briefly pauses, so it sounds more fluent overall.  Another goal might be to slow down. While speed is important in reading, we do not want to read too fast as our overall comprehension will be affected.  Podcasting also helps us share our learning with you at home and with friends around the world as we can record our thinking and discoveries. For the last couple of weeks, the students have explored various reading responses in our reader's workshop.  Last week, we discussed how we can write and draw book recommendations to other friends in our classroom.  We also learned to share our thinking about books in our reading journals. In these journals we share specific ideas and thoughts, guided from our reading groups.  We can also share our reading responses through various digital tools, such as Voicethread.  Voicethread is an online platform tat allows students to use their voice, their words, or their drawings to exporess an idea or understanding.  It also allows other students and people to comment on our Voicethread.  It is a terrific communication tool and we use it often in our classroom.  This week, we created 2 different ones and we have embedded them here for you to see.  We hope you enjoy listening to the students' thoughtful ideas and responses.

Here is the link for our Voicethread on meeting with our Reading Buddies.


Here is the link for our Voicethread on how we can be safe, kind and responsible at ABS.


In writer's workshop, the students continued writing their small moment stories by adding more details to their words and their pictures.  The students also learned to carefully re-read their own writing pieces and make changes to their spelling or overall struture.  Next week, the students will be partnered up with an editing buddy, a friend who will help with revision.  We are so excited as we are getting closer to publication.

Have a great day tomorrow and weekend.

Maria