Weekly Update 2/21

It was so great to see so many families join us to celebrate all of the learning and hard work at our Learners' Showcase this morning. The children were so proud to share their achievements.  We will be sending home their work today. If you were not able to make it this morning, ask your child to share their work with you at home!

Today the 3rd graders will be coming home with a sheet to prompt a conversation about your family's immigration story. Use these questions to get the conversation going...add as much information as you'd like! If you don't know much about your family's immigration story, that's okay! We will be exploring the topic the week we get back from break.

1. Do you know of anyone in your family who has immigrated?
2. Where did they come from?
3. Why did they immigrate?
4. Where did the immigrate to? 
5. What do you think is interesting about their story?

We hope everyone has a relaxing and fun vacation week! See you in March!

Weekly Update 2/14

Happy Valentine's Day! The week was buzzing with excitement as the children are looking forward to giving and receiving Valentines!

Our systems inquiry is wrapping up.  This week we talked about how to make your writing "audience ready." We made final edits by making sure our writing has punctuation, capital letters, correct spelling and organization. We also made detailed drawings of our systems, complete with labels. The writing and drawing are coming together, as everyone is creating a magazine page using Google slides. Students are enjoying choosing fonts, adjusting layout, and adding text features. We are excited to share our final product next Friday at our learning showcase!

In math both 3rd graders and 4th graders are setting daily goals and making choices to help reach those goals. The 4th graders are learning different strategies for multiplying large numbers. As they learn these strategies, they will be thinking about what strategy works best for them and then applying those strategies to solve real world problems. The third graders have just shifted from math fact boot camp to our unit on fractions.  Please continue to encourage your kids to practice their facts at home! 

Our next inquiry will explore the power of stories to connect us to historic time periods. The 3rd graders will spend the first week exploring immigration stories to connect us to the past and learn about ourselves. 4th graders will be doing the same thing, but with a different time period. Be on the lookout for Immigration Day information next week!

We decided to adjust the time for our learning showcase next week (Friday 2/21) from 8:30-9:15.  That way you can bring your child to school and visit the classroom when you drop them off!

Weekly News 2/7

Happy Friday! Here are some important reminders and a new field trip date! 

Third grade immigration day:
Third grade parents mark your calendars for March 13th! Your child will be participating in an Ellis Island Immigration simulation on that day with the other third graders.  This day will be part of a larger study in our classrooms on historical fiction, the power of story and history. We need some third grade parent volunteers for that day for the quarantine station!  Please let us know if you'd like to help out.  

It would be helpful at home to start talking about any immigration stories that you might have in your family.  Where are your ancestors from? What are their stories?  We will start sharing soon! 

Learning Showcase:We are inviting parents in for a learning showcase on Friday, February 21st from 8:45 to 9:30.  Feel free to drop in any time during that time and your child will be individually showing you some things that he or she is working on.  It shouldn't take more than 15 minutes or so- if you're able to drop in we'd love to see you! 


Valentine's Day:
Students are welcome to bring in Valentines on February 14th for a Valentines exchange.  We just ask that if students are bringing them in that they bring one for everyone! 

Mount Major Field Trip:
It's officially happening! We are so excited to climb Mount Major with our classes.  As many parents that would like to will be able to join us! We will give more details as it gets closer but wanted to give you these dates: May 29th will be the scheduled day and June 3 will be the rain date.  

Here are some questions to ask your child:

• How are you making your nonfiction writing engaging for the reader?
• What techniques have you used? 
• What do you think about the read aloud- Front Desk by Kelly Yang? 
• What have you discussed during read aloud time? 
• What are some of the conversations you've had around prejudice and stereotypes? 
• How are your math facts going? 
• What kinds of choices have you made in math?
• How have your math choices led you to your learning goals in math? 

Have a wonderful weekend!