12/18/17 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• We are so excited for our Holiday Celebration.  We will have a Pajama and Pancake breakfast, along with a book exchange and a craft on Thursday, December 21.  Please turn in your book ($5 limit) for the Book Exchange as soon as possible.
• There will be no school on Friday, December 22-Tuesday, January 2 due to the Holiday break. School will resume on Wednesday, January 3.
• Last Day for the BookFair is Monday! Did you know there will be a family shopping night on Monday, December 18th from 4-8PM?  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Math:
We will be having our Unit 3 Assessment this Wednesday, December 20th.  Look for the study guide on Monday.  

Social Studies:
This week in Social Studies students identified Michigan counties on a map that are well known for growing agriculture and raising livestock.  We color coded the map, then analyzed our work.  Students recognized that the west side of the Lower Peninsula grew the majority of crops as well as raise livestock.  Our discussion continued with how location determines why certain crops are grown in certain locations within our state.  We discussed climate as well as soil.  Finally students worked with a team to create a menu (appetizer, main meal and dessert) of food grown right here in Michigan.  What a fun lesson!

Science:

Students really enjoyed water coloring and creating cute penguins out of construction paper.  I linked this art project with our water unit because we were talking about why ice floats (ice has less density than water) and then of course we began talking about animals that live on icebergs.  Students then decided to use this project to teach the rest of Wixom students what we learned by writing one sentence in a speech bubble...hence, TALKING PENGUINS!  

This Week in Word Study and Grammar:

We will not be having Grammar and Word Study this week.

 Writing:
The students have continued to work on their expert writing.  We have been exploring different topics that they know a lot about.  We are also examining a topic as a class (cockroaches!)  so that I can model to the students how to take notes, determine importance of facts, write paragraphs, create headings, etc.  The students are super excited to begin working on their non-fiction mini-books.

Reading: 

We have started Informational Reading!  The students have had fun exploring the purpose of the many different text features in non-fiction books- such as Table of Contents, Headings, Subheadings, Pictures, Captions, Bold words, Glossary, Index, etc.  We are also spending time learning about Informational Text Structures.  We are reading articles with these different structures to really examine the way it is used and how it helps us to learn new information.

12/10/2017 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• Parent/Teacher Conferences are Thursday, December 14th.  It is also a half day of school for your child.  School will be dismissed at 11:09am.  We look forward to meeting with you all at Parent/Teacher Conferences.
• We are so excited for our Holiday Celebration.  We will have a Pajama and Pancake breakfast, along with a book exchange and a craft on Thursday, December 21.  Please turn in your book ($5 limit) for the Book Exchange by Friday, December 15.
• There will be no school on Friday, December 22-Tuesday, January 2 due to the Holiday break. School will resume on Wednesday, January 3.

Math:
As we deepen our understanding of the relationship between multiplication and division, students are learning about the commutative property (turn around rule).  This week students worked with a team to discuss if division also has a turn around rule?  Their challenge was to work together, use a mathematical model to explain their thinking, and a written explanation.  Three groups were asked to present their work to their peers.  Below are pictures of their thinking and presentations.  I love when students' understandings manifests themselves into a learning opportunity for all!  By allowing students to teach their peers or share their understanding, it provides another opportunity for learning as well as solidifying understanding for the students presenting.  So much learning from this activity!  

  
Social Studies:

Unit 2: Michigan Economy. One student was super excited because she had on a pizza shirt and our learning for this particular day included the book, Pizza for the Queen.

Students enjoy this unit because we look at it from the perspective of owning a pizzeria!  Students will learn about the natural resources needed to make a pizza that are grown right here in Michigan, as well as the geographic location of certain crops, business incentives, reasons for certain locations of businesses, and opportunity costs, to name a few concepts for this unit.

Science:

Students will take their assessment this coming Monday and I will share their scores during Parent/Teacher Conferences.

This Week in Word Study and Grammar:

 Writing:
This week we started our writing unit on Informational Text.  The students will be writing a non-fiction minibook.  We talked about how the purpose of Informational writing is to WRITE to TEACH.  The students started brainstorming topics that they know a lot about.  We will be examining these topics further and the students will begin to learn how to gather facts, take notes, and begin to put their ideas together into headings and subheadings.  We will also be using mentor texts to learn a variety of text features.  The students are so excited to begin their informational minibooks. 

Reading: 

We just finished our read aloud Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel and wrapped up our unit on Character Studies.  The students did a great job with this unit and really learned what it means to follow a character along the ups and downs through their journey.  The students also did a great job comparing and contrasting the two main characters (Dyamonde and Opal) from our last two read alouds.  They met in their Thinking Teams to make an argument about which character they think would make a better friend.  They had to support their position with evidence from the story and have a friendly debate with their team members.  

We will be starting a new unit next week where we will be focusing on reading Informational Text.

12/04/17 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• Parent/Teacher Conferences are Thursday, December 14th.  It is also a half day of school for your child. 
• A note went home today about our Holiday Celebration.  We will have a Pajama and Pancake breakfast, along with a book exchange and a craft on Thursday, December 21.  We will be contacting those parents who volunteered to help out.  Look for an email this week.  
• There will be no school on Friday, December 22-Tuesday, January 2 due to the Holiday break. School will resume on Wednesday, January 3.
• The weather was so nice last week, students enjoyed a fun afternoon recess.
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• 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:
Embedded in our math curriculum and within each unit is something called, Exploration.  Exploration extends a mathematical topic, providing students with hands-on activities.  This particular exploration's focus was exploring bar graphs, area, and partitioning rectangles.  Students explored different ways to measure area, partition rectangles and represent data on a scaled bar graph.  Student worked alongside their peers to complete the activities.

  
Social Studies:

We have begun Unit 2: Michigan Economy.  Students enjoy this unit because we look at it from the perspective of owning a pizzeria!  Students will learn about the natural resources needed to make a pizza that are grown right here in Michigan, as well as the geographic location of certain crops, business incentives, reasons for certain locations of businesses, and opportunity costs, to name a few concepts for this unit.

Science:

We will begin to review the water unit this week and take the unit test next Monday.  I will send home a study guide by the end of the week.  

This Week in Word Study and Grammar:

 Writing:
This week we are publishing our Personal Narrative stories.  The students have worked hard on their final writing pieces and are excited to share them with the class.  

On Wednesday, we will begin our new Informational Writing Unit.  The students will brainstorm various topics that they are experts on and begin to write all that they know.  We will be taking a close look at a lot of Informational books to learn about the structure and organization that goes into informational writing. 

Reading: 

Today (Monday) we had our Because of Winn Dixie celebration.  We watched the movie and enjoyed rootbeer floats.  The students had fun comparing the movie to the book.  

This week we will be continuing with our new read aloud Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel.  We are nearing the end of our Character Studies unit.  We will be closely following the character Dyamonde and how she responds to struggles and changes throughout the story.  We will then spend time comparing and contrasting Dyamonde to Opal in Because of Winn Dixie.