Whew...what a week! Fall Festival, Parent-Teacher conferences, and the end of the first quarter are all behind us. We have another busy week ahead with the Fall Book Fair and Picture Days! Ready...Set...Go!
If you have any box tops at home, PLEASE send them in! We're only FOUR behind Mrs. Hudson, and she ALWAYS beats us (we have a friendly, little rivalry going on with this)!!!
On Wednesday this week (October 29th), we'll have our individual and class pictures taken. Please dress your child in a light blue uniform top and khaki bottoms. I'll send out a Remind text on Tuesday evening :)
Also on Wednesday, 1st quarter report cards will be available to view on RenWeb. A paper copy is not sent home. If you haven't set up an account yet, you can do so by clicking on the RenWeb icon on the MID website.
This week in...
Bible: This week's lesson is on Being Courageous. We'll talk about the courage of the disciples as they continued to teach about Jesus, even in the face of persecution. Then we'll think about ways that we can courageously share our faith with others.
Literacy: The BIG news is that we're starting a new spelling program in the 2nd quarter! It's called Words Their Way, and will be much more differentiated, giving your child a spelling list that is just right for his or her spelling skills. This week we'll take a comprehensive spelling inventory that will pinpoint exactly what each child's current spelling skill level is. Based on this inventory, I'll assign the children to spelling groups. We'll spend the rest of the week learning how to do the spelling sorts that are a mainstay of this program. Sorting the words will allow the children to discover similarities in spelling patterns, word parts, and meanings. I'm excited about the differentiation that this program offers, as well as the fact that it will give our kids so much more support with their reading! This week, we won't have any spelling words, as we'll be working on the spelling inventory and learning the word sorts. Next week I'll begin sending home our new lists!
Social Studies: In 4th grade we'll continue to talk about events leading up to the Revolutionary War, including the Intolerable Acts and the First Continental Congress.
In 5th grade we're moving from the Maya to the Aztec. We'll talk about their culture in terms of geography, political system, religion, and social structure, as well as their rise and fall.
Have a great week!
Monday, October 27, 2014
Monday, October 13, 2014
Monday Update 10/13/14
Holy Birthdays Batman!!! October is packed with birthdays! We have 5 in our fourth grade class and 2 more in fifth, so we'll be eating LOTS of cupcakes this month (we're just fattening up for winter?) I might need to start scheduling extra Mariners on the Move meetings to work all of these extra treats off!!!
The end of the 1st quarter, and mandatory Parent-Teacher conferences are coming up quickly. Mrs. Hudson and I do our conferences together so that you only need to attend one. Please keep in mind that we have 34 sets of parents to meet with, so we have to limit our conferences to 20 minutes. You can click on the following link to sign up for a conference time: Parent/Teacher Conference Sign Up
This week in...
Bible: Our memory verse this week is - Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. Acts 5:42
Last week we talked about how Peter and John were jailed, and then brought before the Jewish officials for healing a man in Jesus' name. They were told to stop doing anything in the name of Jesus, but chose to listen to God rather than man.
This week we'll learn that the apostles were again put in jail for teaching about Jesus. This time, an angel of the Lord opens the jail doors during the night freeing the men, and telling them to go into the temple courts to continue teaching. The Jewish officials are at a loss and don't know what to do when they find the apostles, who are supposed to be locked up in jail, in the temple courts. One of the Pharisees tells them not to do anything, that if this "Jesus thing" is of men it will fail, but that if it's of God, it's a fight they can't win.
Literacy: In Language, both 4th and 5th graders will be learning about abbreviations this week. Most of them know the months of the year and days of the week, but there are many others that they need to be aware of. We'll add these to our Language Arts notebooks so we have them to refer to when needed.
In Reading Skills, 4th grade will continue their unit on Text Structures. We'll look at cause/effect, problem/solution, and description this week. Fifth grade will be working on making connections.
Why is it important to make connections with what we're reading? Think of our brains as a filing cabinet. It's easier to add new information to an existing file than it is to have to make a brand new file and find a spot for it in the filing cabinet. In much the same way, when we read something new, if we can connect it to something we already know, it's easier to make meaning and understand what we read. We'll be talking about making Text to Self, Text to Text, and Text to World connections.
When we make Text to Self connections we think about what we can connect to personally. It may be a character that reminds us of ourselves or someone we know, a situation that is similar to something we've experienced, or a setting that's familiar to us. When we make Text to Text connections, we think about how we can connect what we're reading with something we've read before. Text to World connections are connections that we make with things we've seen or heard about, but that we haven't experienced personally. For example, when reading the book Wonder to the 5th grade, I made a text to world connection when I found out that the main character, Auggie, has Treacher Collins Syndrome. I remembered having seen a documentary about a little girl named Julianna Wetmore who has the same diagnosis. This allowed me to understand more deeply what Auggie may look like, and what his medical issues are.
Social Studies: In 4th grade we're continuing to talk about the causes of the Revolutionary War, and will be moving on to the early events of the war by the end of the week. We'll read a book called "Let it Begin Here" about the battles at Lexington and Concord.
In 5th grade we're learning about the culture of the Maya this week, including where they lived, their political structure, religion, social classes, agriculture, and inventions. We'll learn about the Mayan alphabet and will write our names using these symbols! Speaking of symbols, we'll also begin our mask project in which we create masks that we'll paint and cover with symbols that represent each culture that we study.
Have a great week!
The end of the 1st quarter, and mandatory Parent-Teacher conferences are coming up quickly. Mrs. Hudson and I do our conferences together so that you only need to attend one. Please keep in mind that we have 34 sets of parents to meet with, so we have to limit our conferences to 20 minutes. You can click on the following link to sign up for a conference time: Parent/Teacher Conference Sign Up
This week in...
Bible: Our memory verse this week is - Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ. Acts 5:42
Last week we talked about how Peter and John were jailed, and then brought before the Jewish officials for healing a man in Jesus' name. They were told to stop doing anything in the name of Jesus, but chose to listen to God rather than man.
This week we'll learn that the apostles were again put in jail for teaching about Jesus. This time, an angel of the Lord opens the jail doors during the night freeing the men, and telling them to go into the temple courts to continue teaching. The Jewish officials are at a loss and don't know what to do when they find the apostles, who are supposed to be locked up in jail, in the temple courts. One of the Pharisees tells them not to do anything, that if this "Jesus thing" is of men it will fail, but that if it's of God, it's a fight they can't win.
Literacy: In Language, both 4th and 5th graders will be learning about abbreviations this week. Most of them know the months of the year and days of the week, but there are many others that they need to be aware of. We'll add these to our Language Arts notebooks so we have them to refer to when needed.
In Reading Skills, 4th grade will continue their unit on Text Structures. We'll look at cause/effect, problem/solution, and description this week. Fifth grade will be working on making connections.
Why is it important to make connections with what we're reading? Think of our brains as a filing cabinet. It's easier to add new information to an existing file than it is to have to make a brand new file and find a spot for it in the filing cabinet. In much the same way, when we read something new, if we can connect it to something we already know, it's easier to make meaning and understand what we read. We'll be talking about making Text to Self, Text to Text, and Text to World connections.
When we make Text to Self connections we think about what we can connect to personally. It may be a character that reminds us of ourselves or someone we know, a situation that is similar to something we've experienced, or a setting that's familiar to us. When we make Text to Text connections, we think about how we can connect what we're reading with something we've read before. Text to World connections are connections that we make with things we've seen or heard about, but that we haven't experienced personally. For example, when reading the book Wonder to the 5th grade, I made a text to world connection when I found out that the main character, Auggie, has Treacher Collins Syndrome. I remembered having seen a documentary about a little girl named Julianna Wetmore who has the same diagnosis. This allowed me to understand more deeply what Auggie may look like, and what his medical issues are.
Social Studies: In 4th grade we're continuing to talk about the causes of the Revolutionary War, and will be moving on to the early events of the war by the end of the week. We'll read a book called "Let it Begin Here" about the battles at Lexington and Concord.
In 5th grade we're learning about the culture of the Maya this week, including where they lived, their political structure, religion, social classes, agriculture, and inventions. We'll learn about the Mayan alphabet and will write our names using these symbols! Speaking of symbols, we'll also begin our mask project in which we create masks that we'll paint and cover with symbols that represent each culture that we study.
Have a great week!
Monday, October 6, 2014
Monday Update 10/6/14
Happy Fall! It finally feels like autumn out there, and I'm loving this escape from the humidity! This is, by far, my favorite time of year, when the air turns crisp and cool and the leaves begin to change. Fall in North Carolina is a beautiful thing to witness!
One of our parents asked me a great question this week, and I thought some of you might be wondering the same thing, so I wanted to share her question and my answer with all of you :)
"How is my child doing in Language Arts? I haven't seen much coming home except spelling tests."
The reason that you don't see a lot of things come home is because we do most of our work in our Interactive Notebooks, which stay at school. I'm planning to share these with you at Parent-Teacher conferences. In our Interactive Notebooks we write Reading Response Letters, practice Reading skills and strategies, work on grammar and parts of speech, and practice Writing skills.
Some of the things that you should see coming home on a regular basis are from our daily Morning Work (this applies to 4th grade only). On Mondays we do an Idiom of the Week, Tuesdays is a prefix activity, Wednesdays is a suffix activity, and Thursdays we work on Mountain Language which addresses many grammar and language skills (we just started that last week). On Fridays we do our memory verse quiz.
Fifth grade will begin working on Mountain Language in another week or two. Over the next few weeks in my Monday Update, I'll highlight some of the Reading, Writing, and Grammar activities that we do to give you a better idea of what your child is working on in class.
I also wanted to give you an update on AR goals. We've had a couple of 'glitches' with our AR system, and have been trying get them resolved. I was able to access the goal calculator today, and will be sending emails tomorrow and Wednesday which will give you your child's AR goal. It's been adjusted to account for the fact that we started AR a little later than we'd planned. Your child can take AR tests even though the goals haven't been set. This won't interfere with their quiz results or points earned.
This week in...
Bible
We won't have a memory verse this week, as we'll being reviewing the verses learned during the first 5 weeks. We're continuing to talk about Peter and John healing the beggar at the temple gate. Today we talked about the Sanhedrin (the Jewish officials) and how angry they were that Peter and John had performed this miracle in the name of Jesus Christ. Because so many people had witnessed it, they couldn't deny what had happened, but they didn't want these 'Jesus followers' taking any of their power over the people. The Sanhedrin told Peter and John that they weren't to teach, preach, or do anything else in Jesus' name, but Peter replied that he would listen to the words of God, not the words of men. This got an "Ooohh...burn!!!" from the 4th graders who all agreed that we should place more importance on the word of God than the word of man. When we ended our Bible time today, several kids commented that they wish we had more time to spend talking about Bible...gotta love that!
Literacy
In Language, both 4th and 5th grade are reviewing nouns: common and proper, singular and plural, and possessive.
In Reading Skills the 4th graders are beginning a unit on text structures. Over the next two weeks we'll spend time learning about and practicing:
One of our parents asked me a great question this week, and I thought some of you might be wondering the same thing, so I wanted to share her question and my answer with all of you :)
"How is my child doing in Language Arts? I haven't seen much coming home except spelling tests."
The reason that you don't see a lot of things come home is because we do most of our work in our Interactive Notebooks, which stay at school. I'm planning to share these with you at Parent-Teacher conferences. In our Interactive Notebooks we write Reading Response Letters, practice Reading skills and strategies, work on grammar and parts of speech, and practice Writing skills.
Some of the things that you should see coming home on a regular basis are from our daily Morning Work (this applies to 4th grade only). On Mondays we do an Idiom of the Week, Tuesdays is a prefix activity, Wednesdays is a suffix activity, and Thursdays we work on Mountain Language which addresses many grammar and language skills (we just started that last week). On Fridays we do our memory verse quiz.
Fifth grade will begin working on Mountain Language in another week or two. Over the next few weeks in my Monday Update, I'll highlight some of the Reading, Writing, and Grammar activities that we do to give you a better idea of what your child is working on in class.
I also wanted to give you an update on AR goals. We've had a couple of 'glitches' with our AR system, and have been trying get them resolved. I was able to access the goal calculator today, and will be sending emails tomorrow and Wednesday which will give you your child's AR goal. It's been adjusted to account for the fact that we started AR a little later than we'd planned. Your child can take AR tests even though the goals haven't been set. This won't interfere with their quiz results or points earned.
This week in...
Bible
We won't have a memory verse this week, as we'll being reviewing the verses learned during the first 5 weeks. We're continuing to talk about Peter and John healing the beggar at the temple gate. Today we talked about the Sanhedrin (the Jewish officials) and how angry they were that Peter and John had performed this miracle in the name of Jesus Christ. Because so many people had witnessed it, they couldn't deny what had happened, but they didn't want these 'Jesus followers' taking any of their power over the people. The Sanhedrin told Peter and John that they weren't to teach, preach, or do anything else in Jesus' name, but Peter replied that he would listen to the words of God, not the words of men. This got an "Ooohh...burn!!!" from the 4th graders who all agreed that we should place more importance on the word of God than the word of man. When we ended our Bible time today, several kids commented that they wish we had more time to spend talking about Bible...gotta love that!
Literacy
In Language, both 4th and 5th grade are reviewing nouns: common and proper, singular and plural, and possessive.
In Reading Skills the 4th graders are beginning a unit on text structures. Over the next two weeks we'll spend time learning about and practicing:
- putting events in chronological order
- comparing and contrasting
- determining cause and effect
- finding problem and solution relationships
The 5th graders are working on Asking Questions. We're talking about Thin and Thick questions (thin questions can be answered by finding the information right in the text, while thick questions require making some inferences). We'll practice identifying thick and thin quetions and generating our own. We'll also learn about asking questions before, during, and after reading and how that helps us understand our reading more deeply.
In Writing we'll be working on generating ideas for our writing over the next two weeks. We'll talk about where authors get their ideas and we'll make lists of our own for things like: everyday experiences, memories, favorite places, and special people.
Social Studies
In 4th grade we've started talking about the causes of the American Revolution. Some of your kids may have told you about the "email" that I read to them that outlined some changes that were going to happen at school. I told them that our administrators had decided that we were going to change our school day to 7am to 5pm. We wouldn't have anymore time for recess and would only get 10 minutes for lunch. We'd have no time to go on field trips and would need to do 4 hours of homework every night.
As you can imagine, they were outraged! I asked them to write letters to Mr. Tom and Ms. Tammy letting them know why they didn't agree with these ideas. They scribbled furiously as they grumbled to each other about how unfair this was, that they weren't going to have time for their after school activities, they would be tired all the time because they'd have to get up so early, and on, and on, and on.
After they'd written their letters, I let them know that none of these changes were actually going to happen, and asked for their forgiveness for misleading them (most of them forgave me...a few are still holding out!). I also told them that they now understood the feelings of the American colonists who were being told they would be taxed to help pay for a war that King George III had decided to fight with the French.
This week we'll talk about the many tax acts that were put into place that resulted in the colonists' eventual revolt against the crown. And believe me, your kids were riled up enough to revolt against MID when they thought all of these unfair changes were going to really happen!!!
In 5th grade we're starting our unit on Ancient Civilizations - Maya, Aztec, and Inca. We'll begin by getting familiar with the major landmarks of Central and South America. Then we'll hypothesize how we can learn about civilizations that no longer exist. After that we'll begin studying the Mayan, Aztec, and Incan cultures, including the rise and fall of each civilization.
The 5th graders took their Geography test on Friday and most did really well on it. They'll do some self-corrections and then bring them home to be signed and returned to school. You should see them come home by Wednesday.
I hope to see you on Tuesday night at the PTO Meeting/Reading Night!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)