February 27, 2015

I'm really excited about something new we're going to try in March. There is a community of bloggers who write something called a "Slice of Life," where they tell a story about one small part of their life or something that happened to them. In March, they challenge bloggers to write an entry for every single day. We're going to be participating in this as a classroom! To get ready, we've been practicing what it means to write a slice of life story. I've made our blog public, so everyone can see the entries, but only the students may post and all comments must be approved by me before they appear. We also all changed our profile pictures into drawings, so the photos and names will not be linked. If students wish to participate, they should link their blog post in the comments section of the entry that I'll be writing each day. I'll then post this page to share with a community of bloggers, and I'll include the link for students to see other class's blogs. We'll have a celebration at the end of the month for anyone who has completed an entry for at least 21 of the days! Here's a link to our blog here.

TerraNova testing does begin next week. As a reminder, please make sure that students get a good night's sleep, eat a healthy breakfast, and have 2 #2 pencils. I'll have some extra pencils at school, too, if students need them. We will be testing every morning, so it's important that students arrive on time. They may wear their gym uniform every day next week and bring a healthy snack.

Finally, we will have several tests the week after TerraNovas, in religion, science, and social studies. We will start studying for them in class next week.

February 18, 2015

We began the season of Lent today with an all school Mass. Yesterday, we created a calendar in class that tied the different activities we do during Lent with the Ten Commandments. For example, the class decided to wash the dishes one day, which connects with the fourth commandment: honor your mother and father.

We've been doing a lot of great writing activities lately! Students wrote about what their life will be like when they're 100, and we used an aging app to change their photos to make them look older. We just finished working on some special letters for people, and I'll be sending those home in the next week or two.

In reading, we finished reading our historical fiction books and are about to start a non-fiction unit. Quite a few students lately have not been doing the assigned reading and have come to our guided reading groups unprepared. I emphasized with them that they get graded on having their work completed, and the work I assign needs to come first during reading time. All the students have at least 45 minutes of class time in between meetings to get their work done, and I expect them to use that time wisely.

We're learning about physical and chemical changes in science, which includes one of my favorite lessons: making pancakes to observe physical and chemical changes! We'll do that this Friday.

Our current math unit is about decimals. We will have a test next week on Friday, February 27, about place value, rounding, and ordering decimals. Also coming up are the TerraNovas, which will take place the first week of March. Please make sure your child is well-rested and arrives on time to school. They are welcome to bring a healthy snack with them the first week of March, as we will be having snack time in between testing. This week students will be receiving their progress reports. If you'd like to meet to discuss anything, please let me know!

February 9, 2015: Inquiry Projects

Many of the students were finishing up their inquiry projects today, where they researched a question they had from what we learned about the Northeast. You can see the movies they made below, and I've also included some pictures from those students who chose to create a poster.

The Wampanoags

The Immigrants

Niagara Falls News Station

Winter Blizzards

Pocahontas's Tribe