We had another terrific week at school. I hope your children are still coming home happy, but tired, from school. They are working so well together and getting experts at our school routines and rules. I am so lucky to be their teacher!
Read Aloud Guest:
Our new school principal, Angela Filion, visited our class for a special read aloud. She is spending time with all the classes and teams in an effort to get to know all the kids. One student pointed out that "that is a lot of names to learn"!!!
Reading:
We started guided reading groups this week. During reader's workshop the students receive guided reading instruction to meet their own specific reading needs. When the students are not in groups with the teacher, they are expected to continue independent reading, or participate in some type of reading response task. They are doing great!
We have completed our classroom contract for what reading looks like and sounds like. All the students are now practicing these expectations daily as they are building stamina in reading. This week, we also started conversations around self-monitoring strategies and ways in which readers can be actively engaged in their own reading. We began by creating an awareness around our own needs. The students listened to a book that a former class of mine made called "I am a good reader". The students received self-monitoring bookmarks to use when they read at school. The students are learning to identify what specific reading needs they have. This awareness helps them narrow the focus as they all read increasingly complex texts. We will continue this work next week.
Author Unit: Todd Parr:
We finished our mini unit studying the author Todd Parr. Throughout this unit, the students participated in various activities showing the importance of accepting each other's differences, how to show kindness and empathy to all. As a culminating activity, the students drew their own self-portraits, inspired by the art of Todd Parr, using seesaw. We will give aprents access sometime next week, we hope.
Writing:
We continued learning about the different kind of writing this week. We read the book "Library Mouse" by Daniel Kirk and practiced writing mini-books just like the main character in the book. We even used mini pencils!!
This week was filled with science. To begin with, the students continued some work around the scientific inquiry skills. They had the opportunity to revise their earlier predictions related to the number of possible seeds inside 2 of our classroom pumpkins. We discussed why scientists might change their predictions.
The students also participated in their first engineering challenge. The students worked in small groups. The students received a list of possible materials to use (such as legos, popsicle sticks, binder clips, yarn, masking tape, to name a few). First, they created a design for a bridge that had to be 12 inches long and 6 inches high. Next, they gathered their materials and set to work building their bridge. Next week, we will test the strength of our bridges and see what we can learn from each other's designs. The students will use that knowledge to improve upon their first design in an attempt to improve the bridge. The ultimate test is for the bridge to hold a book!
School-wide celebration:
We had a great morning running around the school!!
Have a great weekend,
Maria
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