On that note, we have been hard at work in Writer's Workshop! Our books on the Coral Reef are nearly published, and we thank you for your support at home as we've been pushed for time. We will celebrate all the hard work of your children this Friday, March 4th, at our Coral Reef Museum. Mark your calendars! And come prepared with questions for these "experts." Our 5th Grade Book Buddies will join us in the afternoon to celebrate as well.
In Reader's Workshop, we have been working on our skills as partners within reading. Each child has been given a bookmark as a tool to use during Workshop and we've been focusing on these questions:
- What's happening so far?
- What's this mostly about?
- How is the character changing (or not)?
- What is the character learning?
- What is the lesson?
We have been partner reading for 10-15 minutes during Workshop, with breaks for conversation, followed by independent reading. The conversation has been a wonderful aid to comprehension and we encourage you to use these questions at home as well. Some of you may be familiar with RazzKids -- an iPad app with leveled reading. Starting this week, we'll be using this in class for some of our partner reading.
We have just concluded Unit 5 in Math and instead of sending home the end-of-unit assessment as we usually do, we will save it to review during conferences next week. This will give your child a chance to reflect on their work as a mathematician and explain their problem solving methods out loud. We will be sending home the work pages from Unit 5 as well and ask that you please keep these at home. Students are welcome to complete any unfinished pages for extra practice. Our next unit of Investigations dives back into number sense, place value, and story problems. We will be working closely with the number "100" and differentiating within the classroom to meet each student where they are as mathematicians. Unlike previous units, we will be partnering with Mrs. Bolding and Mr. Smith's class during math in order to generate more intentional small group work.
Word Study continues to take part in small groups, however we also spend a portion of Word Study all together working with our Word Wall Words and different parts of speech. We've exposed the class to nouns, verbs, adjectives, and most recently adverbs. This work will continue and we hope you'll partner with us in asking your children to break apart sentences and identify the various parts of speech.
Aside from our daily subjects, we have added a few additional pieces of learning to our day. As of the past few weeks, our class has started following the Presidential primaries. We are tracking the delegate counts for both the Republican and Democratic parties. We will continue doing this as a class in hopes of giving your children a small (but meaningful!) understanding of what is happening in our country during this Presidential election year. And finally, for Lent, we are reading from Jesus Calling each morning. It has been one of the greatest gifts in our day -- to hear the insights of your children and to learn what resonates with them most. We might just have to carry this routine on well past Lent!
As Spring rolls in, so will trips to ImaginOn, gardening excursions, and much more. Stay tuned for what's to come and be sure to mark your calendars for the following dates:
- Student Led Conferences will be next Monday and Tuesday, March 7th and 8th. Please be sure to sign up for a time via Good News. As you know, these conferences are different than the ones held 1st Trimester in that your children will be leading conversation as they share and celebrate their work.
- Spring Break: March 21 -25
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