January Updates
Week of January January 6th-10th 2025
Upcoming Events January:
1/13 - 106 Math Star 360
1/14 - 106 Reading Star 360
1/14 - 110 Math Star 360
1/16 - 110 Reading Star 360
1/20 - No School MLK Day
1/21 - No School for Students - Teacher PD
1/30 - Winter Show *2 Performances*
The students had a WONDERFUL first week back after winter break. Sometimes it takes a while to transition back to school, but both classes had exceptional weeks.
During reading and writing we are focusing our attention on Biographies. We read a booklet on Climate Change to develop background knowledge before starting our biography about Greta Thunberg. Students annotated the booklet. We found vocabulary words and used context to demonstrate understanding of the word. When annotating the text we recorded the text and why it is important. A challenge for students with annotating nonfiction is that everything seems to be important information. During writing we explored biographies to look at the format and how the author sets up the information. Students will have a famous subject to research and write about for our next project.
During Daily 5, students practiced skills independently after a whole group lesson. They did a homophone word sort supporting foundational skills, reviewed and practiced possessive and possessive plural nouns, text structure and subject traits in biographies.
During Social Studies we began Unit 3 Lesson 2. The lesson is about how culture can change and what forces impact those changes.
Week of January 13th-17th
1/20 - No School MLK Day
1/21 - No School for Students - Teacher PD
1/30 - Winter Show *2 Performances*
This week students started their biography on Greta Thunberg. We annotated chapters one and two as a class and completed activities that focused on finding key details. We did an activity where students drew images and created #hashtags identifying important information from Chapter 1. Some of them are hanging on a bulletin board in the hallway. We also worked with a partner to find details that supported the main idea of chapter 2. Students indicated which supporting details were most important and checked them off on the sheet.
During writing students used their selected biography to create subtopics about their subject. On Friday we took notes on each subtopic to organize our information. This will enable the students to draft their paragraphs.
We continued to learn about factors that cause culture to change over time. Students were especially surprised by the Native American Boarding Schools that were created to force Native children act more 'white.' It was a shocking lesson. Students came up with much better ways the US Government could have helped Native Nations. Fund schools where Native students can learn about their own culture and learn English....if they want to! Makes sense.
Week of January 28th-31st
This week was very unique with Show Week. The 3rd graders did such an awesome job and, though I am biased, I thought they were the highlight! We spent all day Wednesday and Thursday on the show. Friday we got to enjoy a reward for such great behavior the last two weeks. This week we did Daily 5, a Drawing Conclusions Escape Room and worked on our Biographies.
Valentine's Day - Mr. Goldner and I discussed making a craft where students recycle found material to make a container for their Valentines. Amazon boxes, shoe boxes, cereal boxes - anything that can be decorated and used to collect cards. If you have something (or extra) please send them to school by February 13th.
Students will have a spelling check for next week based on their Foundational Skill lessons:.
hugged helped baking way write
stopped farming joking weigh right
shopping fixing voted ate eye
dripping eating pasted eight night
stopped farming joking weigh right
shopping fixing voted ate eye
dripping eating pasted eight night
Next week we will be back to normal. After a few unique weeks, please remind your child that we will be back on track and ready to learn on Monday!