Weekly Update 9/27

What a wonderful week we've had! We've been seeing kids collaborating, asking questions, and immersing themselves in some fabulous learning! The highlight of the week was the community panel discussion on Wednesday.  We had 5 members of the Stratham community come together to share how they get involved to make Stratham a positive community.  The kids asked some incredible questions and were inspired to get involved in their own communities.  We brainstormed and shared things that they can do personally, at home, in their neighborhoods, at school, and beyond.

We also began taking a closer look at the 9 learner dispositions that we are focusing on this year.
Students worked with a group to define their disposition, come up with a motto and symbol that represents it, and made a short skit to show the disposition in action.

• Taking responsible risk, being kind, self awareness, learning together, managing impulses, questioning, optimism, persisting, thinking flexibly.

We will be using the dispositions all year as a way to help us reflect and set goals.

In math, both grades are starting a unit on place value. We will be exploring how our number system works.  Third graders will be working with numbers up to the thousands place and 4th graders will build on what was learned last year to work with numbers up to the millions place.

On Thursday SMS Wolf Pack advisory groups met for the first time this year.  Each group developed a definition of community.  This ties in perfectly to what we have been talking about in our classes!

Here are some questions to ask your child:

• What disposition did you work on? Tell me about the skit you made.
• Who is in your Wolf Pack? How did you define community?
• How can you be involved in your community?
• Tell me about the panel discussion.  What were some big takeaways you had?

Upcoming events

• October 2- Gundalow field trip
• October 3- Open house 6:00-7:00

Weekly News 9/20

It's been a great week in our classes! We are diving deeper into reading strategies, our community inquiry and our writing.  A large focus has been "What makes a strong community?".  We've been reading stories, watching short videos and listening to podcasts about big and small ways people are making their communities better.  We are excited for our community panel next Wednesday at 9:00!

We've also starting talking about nine dispositions- being kind, thinking flexibly, persisting, managing impulses, self-awareness, optimism, questioning, taking responsible risks and learning together.  We have seen examples of these in our classroom, school and in the stories we are reading.  We will be spending time with these dispositions all year long and we will also use them for goal setting.  

4th Grade Math:

The 4th graders have been working hard at building routines and setting expectations for math workshop.  We have been playing math games, answering open-ended journal prompts, and having rich discussions about our thinking. A big goal is for students to learn from each other and feel comfortable speaking up and sharing strategies. We have just begun our first official unit exploring place value.

3rd Grade Math:

The 3rd graders have also focused on building routines and setting expectations. We've worked on what math games, task cards, partner work and problem solving looks like in third grade. Students have also spent a lot of time practicing explaining their thinking using thinking stems.

Math facts:

We want to emphasize that each child/family should be hopefully settling into a math fact routine that works for them. Whether it's flash cards, worksheets, oral practice, online or apps, kids should be practicing their facts each day (along with some reading!).

Three Act Math:

A highlight of our week was doing Three Act Math all together! Kids start by looking at an image and coming up with noticings and wonderings. From there- they choose a problem to solve! See our image below on the dice. Students were amazing at challenging themselves, helping each other and doing some deep math thinking. Some questions were: How many dice are in a column? How many dice are pictured? How many dots are pictured? How many dots are there total- even the ones we can't see? We will definitely be doing this again!

Upcoming:

Gundalow field trip on the Great Bay- Wednesday, October 2

Open house with your child- Thursday, October 3

Have a great weekend!

Weekly Update 9/13

We have had an amazing week together! Our classes continue to build community through celebrating and valuing everyone's unique identities. We began our first big writing project of the year..."Where I'm from" poems inspired by George Ella Lyon's poem. Learning about all of the places, people, and memories that make up our identities has been a wonderful experience. Be sure to ask your child what they have included in their poem!

We also started switching classrooms for math this week.  Each class has been working on math routines and expectations through math games, problem solving tasks, and independent work.

Our first Choose Love lesson was Monday.  Choose Love is a social and emotional learning program that every child at SMS will be doing this year.  We talked about what it means to have courage.  Some acts of courage are big...but we show small acts of courage every day.  Ask your child what a "Brave Breath" is and how can it help you?

Questions to ask your child about their week:
-What makes you engaged as a reader?
-What can do you do to help you be more engaged when you are reading?
-What math activities did you enjoy this week?
-Tell me about your Where I'm From poem

Room parents:
We are looking for some room parents for Mrs. Ganier's class.  The job is pretty low key! Basically, you would need to be a liaison between the PTO and class parents and help us organize some of our classroom parties.  Let us know if you're interested!

Donations:
If you have any legos, board games, blocks or building materials at home that you are not using much anymore we would love to use them in our classrooms!

Upcoming:

• Open house (with your child!)- evening of October 3rd

Weekly News 9/6

Happy Friday! We've been spending time getting to know each other, learning what makes up our identities and beginning some of our routines in reading and writing workshop.  Another large focus has been community and what makes a strong and positive community.  We've had some great discussions, teamwork and self-reflection throughout the week.

Be sure to ask your child about:

• exploring our classroom libraries 
• why do people read? 
• how they know they are in a just right book
• the different genres of books
• painting self-portraits
• their goals during team challenges
• flexibility and persistence during team challenges
• beginning writing workshop
• brainstorming special people and places
• playing the name game
• our identity bag museum
• sharing their identity bag
• "practicing" for indoor recess and morning choice time 

Room parents:
We are looking for some room parents for both classes.  The job is pretty low key! Basically, you would need to be a liaison between the PTO and class parents and help us organize some of our classroom parties.  Let us know if you're interested!

Donations:
If you have any legos, board games, blocks or building materials at home that you are not using much anymore we would love to use them in our classrooms!

Upcoming:

• Picture day- September 12th 
• Open house (with your child!)- evening of October 3rd