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.
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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.