A4 Updates: November

Fall Greetings!

It's good to be back into routine, even though it was a shorter week. Between conference days, STEAM week, Halloween, and the Cubs, things were starting to get a bit wacky!

Election Week
This week we held an Emoji Election. This allowed for all students to be active in a democratic way and cast a vote of their own opinion. "Cool Dude" the emoji with sunglasses won. Now it is up to us to decide how we might use the emoji throughout the year. Our Town Hall Representatives will be collecting ideas to bring forth into the decision making process.

Reading
We are continuing our book groups during our reading time. The emphasis is to build a 'readerly life'. As we read our assigned chapters, we have been dissecting our focus weekly. First, we focused on character, then building connections to the story, finding interesting vocabulary and now selecting passages of good writing or deeper messages. Each week a new reading segment is assigned, as well as one of the aforementioned focuses. I am quite pleased with how well the students are doing with this process. They look forward to their group time and are very interactive in the group discussions.

Writing
We have finished our full drafts of our personal narrative. These past few weeks we worked on multiple drafts, introductions, adding details and building dialogue. Next we will be working toward the final stages of drafting and revision and work to type it into our Google documents.

Keyboarding
With the Book Fair coming up, we will use our IDEA Lab time getting a jump start on "Typing Club". Earlier this year a letter regarding keyboarding was sent home. Keyboarding skills has become an integral part of digital literacy and important that it be taught, practiced and supported. We recognize the importance of this skill, but also know that practice is key. In our attempt to build a balanced partnership, we will be getting the kids started on the program and dedicate a few weeks to this at school, but in order for this skill to carry over successfully, home practice will be essential.

Math
We just finished our latest unit (Unit 2&3) where we focused on "BIG" numbers, place value and learned the US traditional algorithms for addition and subtraction. Whereas the teaching of these concepts is complete, we will continue with lots of embedded practice, as this is a skill that takes time and practice to fully integrate. The yellow and white math assessments for unit 2/3 came home in orange folder this weekend. Please recall that M = meets, P or PM = Partially Meets, N or NM = Not Meeting the criteria for the concept being assessed. We are not necessarily expecting full mastery of every point, but overall growth from the beginning to the end of each unit. Please be sure to return these and we will file them in our binder portfolios here at school.

SS & Science
After finishing our Cooperative cycle of learning about Landforms, we will continue our study of mapping with our next focus: Regions of the US. This will take us through the rest of the year as we concentrate on one region at a time, beginning with the NorthEast.

Please take note that with the change of weather, kids are more likely to get sick. Please help your child come prepared for outdoor time. Fresh air is important, but so is proper warmth!

Celebrating with the CUBS!!