Happy Monday Families!
Our school year is off and running! It was an absolute pleasure meeting many of you at curriculum night! I hope you found it to be an informative and useful evening. Your involvement and support is greatly appreciated!
Welcome to the first installment of our bi-monthly blog post! It is my goal to keep you informed and up-to-date about the learning that is taking place in the classroom, as well as making sure you are aware of important upcoming dates and and events.
In addition to becoming comfortable with all of our organizational and academic routines, we have spent the last few weeks engaged in a variety of team building activities in order to establish a level of trust between classmates! Each day, we start with a morning meeting where we have the opportunity to set a positive tone for learning!
Here are the targets we are currently / planning on working to master over the next couple of weeks:
Literacy
Our students started our new shared text, The Road to Freedom. The story is narrated from the point of view of a young girl, Emma, who is traveling on the Underground Railroad with her mother in hopes of making it North to freedom. Our students have been highly engaged throughout text and are having many great discussions related to topics raised within the story. Using this shared text, we will work on literacy skills such as identifying a narrator's point of view, as well as a variety of comprehension skills related to the text.
Writing
Our instruction over the last few weeks has involved “laying the groundwork” for students to plan and write an original narrative story. As we progress through this instruction, students will compose an original story with the goal of including an effectively written introduction, well-developed body paragraphs, and an effective conclusion. Students are writing in response to a prompt which asks them to compose a story about a character who perseveres through a challenge.
Math
Our students are currently working on writing and evaluating numerical expressions with parentheses. We have also been reviewing a variety of multiplication strategies—and have learned a few new ones as well! The first few weeks have also involved getting used to our math routines. In fact, since September started late last week, we also started our daily Number Corner routine. Be sure to ask your student about what we’ve done so far!
Science
Instruction utilizing our science curriculum is well underway! Our current focus is on understanding the various ecosystems around the world. We’ve learned about how members of an ecosystem interact and depend on each other. Currently, we are also learning more specifically about the producers, consumers and decomposers who make up our ecosystem. We even have a very engaging science investigation on the horizon which involves dissecting owl pellets!
Upcoming Events
**Friday, September 15 and 22— PTO sponsored Frozen Treat Fridays
**Tuesday, September 19th- Early Release @ 2:05
**Monday, September 25th—No School District Holiday
**Tuesday September 26th-28th—PTO Sponsored Ivy Hall Book Fair
Friendly Reminders
** Please remember to send your child with a healthy snack each day. Nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!
** Please continue to have your child practice their multiplication facts up to 12.
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| A snapshot right before our welcome back assembly! |
