11/19/2017 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• NO SCHOOL:  Nov. 23rd AND Nov. 24th!  We hope you have a great Thanksgiving Break! 
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• Please always email BOTH teachers if you have any questions or concerns.
• Daily folders and red reading folders are to go to and from school each day.  Reading logs are to be filled out at home to log their 20 minutes of nightly reading.
• Assignment Notebooks (planners) are to be signed or initialed every evening by a parent.  Thank you for taking the time to check your child's planner.
• Please always email BOTH teachers if you have any questions or concerns.
• If your child has one of these images stapled to their daily planner, it is just our way to quickly communicate to you that your child needs a specific winter item for recess.  On Mondays students do go outside for one hour.  As temperatures get colder, they will need winter gear to stay warm and enjoy recess with their friends.
  

Math:

  As a reminder, please make sure your child is studying their specific multiplication set every night!  You can find out what set your child should be studying by checking the top right corner of the actual quiz sent home on Fridays.  Make it part of your child's nightly routine!  

Here is a website, I am sure your child may enjoy visiting to practice multiplication facts!
https://www.mathplayground.com/index_multiplication_division.html

Also, here are some recommended apps for iPads and/or iPhones

http://www.smartappsforkids.com/multiplication/

 Lastly, we have three students who are FACT MASTERS, which means they have mastered all their multiplication and division facts on the weekly fact fluency quizzes!  These students will now be challenged to have a mixed quiz of multiplication and divisions facts each Friday and will try to beat their own time each week!

Social Studies:
We have finished our studies of Unit 1.  Students will be taking the unit assessment on Wednesday.  On Monday and Tuesday we will review the content and I will send home the study guide on Monday, so that your child can study Monday and Tuesday night.  They are already well prepared but it will be helpful to review the study guide at home as well.  

This week students were thoroughly engaged as we discussed how water flows from the Great Lakes into the Atlantic Ocean.  I showed the students a 3 part youtube.com series of the Caldecott Honor Book, Paddle-to-the-Sea by Holling Calncy Holling.  The students were very excited to learn that these videos were based upon a real book and I knew I had them (every teacher's dream)! So, I pulled out a stack of the actual book and many students wanted to take the book home to read today!  This was not required and I believe all but four students brought the book home tonight!  Your child can keep the book at home until after winter break.  Please return the book no later than January 5, 2018!  

Science:
Oh my!  Students enjoy Science!  

I certainly hope they are telling you all about our experiments!  This week students had the opportunity to make a thermometer using a small glass bottle, a piece of plastic pipe, a rubber stopper and colored room temperature water.  Students placed their thermometers into hot water and observed how water expands as it is heated.  Then they placed their thermometers into cold water and observed how water contracts as it is cooled.  After our investigation, students recorded their finding into their science notebooks.  Next, students gathered into two groups and shared their written observations with the group.  Such oral discourse helps students process and organize what they learned.  In addition, listening and evaluating their classmates' understanding not only sharpens their reasoning skills but allows the student to question and/or confirm their own understanding.  After each student shared, the students were then encouraged to revise and edit their own writing based on the groups' discussion.  

This Week in Word Study and Grammar:
Because this coming week is so short, we will be working on the same grammar packet for this week and the week after we return from Thanksgiving Break (November 27).  Our focus will be...

 Writing:
This coming week we are going to be focusing on making some final changes to our personal narrative writing to make it our very best!  This will include reading it carefully to see if there are parts we need to take out, or parts where we need to add more detail.  We will also focus on writing with our senses to really make our "writing come alive" for our readers.  Lastly, we will be working from our editing and revising checklists as our final step before publishing.  The students have worked so hard on these stories can't wait to share their finished pieces.

Reading: 

This week we will continue to focus on following our characters through a story, taking a journey with them along all the hills, valleys, twists, and turns.  We are almost done with our chapter book read aloud Because of Winn Dixie. The students have loved following the character Opal and learning about her by the things she says, thinks, and does.  We have also been analyzing character traits, learning new vocabulary and having literature discussions with our other read aloud titles Maurice the Unbeastly and More Than Anything Else.  The students have also practiced these skills independently in their book clubs and small reading groups. 

11/10/17 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• Daily folders and red reading folders are to go to and from school each day.  Reading logs are to be filled out at home to log their 20 minutes of nightly reading.
• Assignment Notebooks (planners) are to be signed or initialed every evening by a parent.  Thank you for taking the time to check your child's planner.
• Math homework is checked in class together each day.  This time is spent reteaching (if necessary) and more importantly, a time for students to take ownership of their learning by asking questions if they have an incorrect answer on their homework.
• Please always email BOTH teachers if you have any questions or concerns.
• Did you know that Room 303 has a Twitter account?  We only have 16 Followers so please check us out!
  
• There will be no school on Thursday, November 23rd, and Friday, November 24th!  Happy Thanksgiving!
• Please always email BOTH teachers if you have any questions or concerns.
• Our PTA is awesome!  Won't you join?  We currently have 11 families out of 24 who are members.  Membership helps our school in so many ways and it would be amazing if we had 100% participation this year. Please let me know if you'd like another PTA Membership form and I will send it home in your child's daily folder.
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Math:

 Students took their Unit 2 assessment this week.  I will be sending home the graded assessment next week.  Please sign and return the assessment!  Unit 3 will focus on place value to develop and practice strategies for addition and subtraction of 2 and 3 digit numbers.  We will continue to represent multiplication using arrays and use these representations to develop strategies for solving multiplication facts.

Social Studies:


In Social Studies, we learned how people interact with the environment as it relates to natural resources.  Students learned the difference between adapting and modifying and the consequences to our environment.  

As part of our learning we read the book Letting Swift River Go by Jan Yolen.  This book demonstrates how people modified their environment to meet their needs (water) and the natural consequences..

Science:


In Science this week included a hands-on experiment wherein students measured the temperature of three cups water, using their fingers as gauges.  They realized that a standard is needed, as well as a more accurate device to measure temperature, the thermometer!  We will continue to investigate the properties of water and observe how temperature affects water's state and density.  Our next investigation will include making a thermometer to observe how water expands as it is heated.

This Week in Word Study and Grammar:

 Writing:
The students continue to work hard on their second personal narrative writing pieces.  We have been using several great personal narrative mentor texts to help us make our writing even better.We have also been working on adding transition words and learning where to start a new paragraph in our writing.  I am proud of the work the students are doing in writing.

Reading: 

In reading, we continue to pay close attention to how the characters in our story think and act.  We have been learning about the flow of stories and tracking the characters along the story mountain. We are noticing how the character often changes throughout the story with each challenge or problem they may face.  We have also started looking at the different roles that supporting characters may play- the role of sidekick (friend), challenger, or advisor.  We are enjoying our mentor text Because of Winn Dixie as we track Opal along our story mountain and look at the role the other characters play in the story- Gloria Dump, Otis, Miss Franny, the Preacher, and Amanda, the Dewberry brothers, etc. 

11/03/17 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• Daily folders and red reading folders are to go to and from school each day.  Reading logs are to be filled out at home to log their 20 minutes of nightly reading.
• Assignment Notebooks (planners) are to be signed or initialed every evening by a parent.  Thank you for taking the time to check your child's planner.
• Math homework is checked in class together each day.  This time is spent reteaching (if necessary) and more importantly, a time for students to take ownership of their learning by asking questions if they have an incorrect answer on their homework.
• Please always email BOTH teachers if you have any questions or concerns.
• Did you know that Room 303 has a Twitter account?  We only have 16 Followers so please check us out!
  
• NO SCHOOL:  Tuesday, November 7th, Thursday, November 23rd, and Friday, November 24th!
• Please always email BOTH teachers if you have any questions or concerns.
• Our PTA is awesome!  Won't you join?  We currently have 11 families out of 24 who are members.  Membership helps our school in so many ways and it would be amazing if we had 100% participation this year. Please let me know if you'd like another PTA Membership form and I will send it home in your child's daily folder.
• 

Our Halloween Parade and classroom party was so much FUN!  Thank you to all the parents who helped make this a memorable day!  We couldn't do it without your support!  The students enjoyed pizza, a party mix called, Witches' Brew, a Halloween craft, some pretty cool Halloween music, and many laughs! 

Buster the Bus visited Wixom!  This was a very informative assembly about bus safety.  Students also practiced how to safely evacuate a bus in the event of an emergency.  

Math:

 This past week students solved division number stories and learned about remainders, reviewed Frames-and-Arrows diagrams involving the four operations, and played Division Array, exploring even and odd number patterns.  

There are many opportunities for students to share their mathematical thinking with their peers and they are all eager to do so!  This is such a fun way to learn together and it's amazing how well the students can explain their thinking all while teaching their peers.  

  

Social Studies:
This week in Social Studies the students conducted a short research using the Chrome books to locate information on their favorite place in our region in order to write about it.  Prior to their research, we created an anchor chart of all the wonderful places in Michigan such as Frankenmuth, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Lake Michigan, The Wixom Library, Apple Bee's, Mackinaw Island, Turtle Cove Water Park, Kennsington State Park, Little Caesar's Arena, and Comerica Park, to name a few.  After wards, students Googled specific questions about their topic such as; When was Comerica Park built?  Students learned that research required reading through information to find the answer to their question.

This Week in Word Study and Grammar:

 Writing:
The students have been working hard on their second personal narrative writing piece.  This past week we talked about how writers edit as they go and work hard to look for words that don't look right.  We also learned strategies to fix words that we have spelled incorrectly in our writing.  We also worked on leads, adding details, and writing our stories out bit by bit. I am excited about the ownership the students are taking with their writing. 

 

Reading: 

We continue to focus on getting to know our characters as we read.  We have been using our read aloud Because of Winn Dixie to really examine how readers form theories about the characters based on what they say and how they act.  The students are taking notes and applying these same strategies with their own books they are reading with their book club.  We also began our Literature Discussion Groups this past week and the students learned how to have an effective conversation about a book.