I cannot believe how fast time flies. We have almost completed another week of school again! We are getting close to summer already. With summer pending, many of you have inquired about Summer School. As a new teacher at the Allen Brook community, I am looking into this issue so I can respond to you all with correct information. If you have pressing concerns regarding this issue, please contact the main office so they can direct you and assist you as soon as possible. I know that the school will offer private tutoring over the summer (at parents’ expense). A list of tutors is being compiled and will be published in the school newspaper, the School Bell. Let me know if there is anything I can do in the meantime to help you.
Warmer and sunnier weather also means that many students wear flip-flops to school. Please be advised that flip-flops do not provide the safety we want the students to have while at recess. Sneakers are encouraged for everyday recess use. Please see a complete article on this matter in this week’s School Bell.
Our research and writing on our Tropical Rainforest animals are continuing with many students now typing their reports in Word. It is incredible to see their excitement as they share the writing process. The students love to share the information they have gathered-the cool facts about “their” animals, its food, and how it takes care of its young. The students love to share their time and energy helping each other in the writing process as well. They eagerly share books and other resources. They share computer knowledge and even access to the computers! I am so proud of all of them. What an amazing group of kids we have! We will start our glogsters on the animals this week. Each student has his/her own account, and each student will be encouraged to create one glogster on his/her animal to represent all the hard work. If you recall, a glogster is an interactive poster online, a multi-media platform that allows us to import pictures, words, graphics, images and videos. We can also link to outside live internet sites! Each glogster will, in addition to the animal report, include a title, an image of the animal and some fact bubbles/sections. Students are also encouraged to record videos using our flip camera. Some students have expressed an interest in writing poems and putting them to music, in the form of a rap! I am very excited about the creativity taking place. While we will work on these glogsters in school, some students have expressed an interest in working on them from home too. I will send the log-in information and passwords through an email on Friday. I am very happy to hear that our students wish to show their understanding in digital ways!
Our classroom has once again transformed itself. It is looking more and more like a tropical rainforest. For those of you who cannot visit our classroom, please view the pictures below. Once again, thank you for supporting your child’s learning at home and bringing in pictures, books, and stuffed animals for our classroom. We even had a student bring in an extra animal for our rainforest river, created in a project at home! Thank you!
The students will start reading more fictional stories next week, but you will continue to see some additional non-fiction stories as well. They have worked very hard on vocabulary, sentence structure and comprehension these last few weeks as we have explored “Reading for Information” together. Reminding ourselves of the importance of asking oneself “Does this make sense?” and “Stopping to Think” will benefit our readers now and in years to come. Thanks for supporting this reading at home every night.
Have a great rest of the week.
Regards,
Maria McCormack
No comments:
Post a Comment