Take a Peek at Our Week!

*Due to the two short weeks, we will not be sending home Weekly News until 11/30.

This week, we reflected on our first summative assessment for Language and Literature. Students worked with partners to discuss and retry three questions that were incorrect. I had them choose the questions that they felt needed the most attention (we didn't spend time on "right there" answers or questions that they made a silly mistake on, however, those types of errors were part of our reflection discussion).

After students worked with their partners, they recorded a Screencastify video to share their assessment score, areas of strength, and areas needing growth with you. The purpose of these videos is to place the responsibility on the students to share their performance on assessments and their progress throughout the year. This was our first time using Screencastify, so if your child's video has any issues,  please let me know and I can share their score with you via Dojo.

In writing, we worked on conclusion paragraphs! We peer edited once again to help us become comfortable with the organization and structure. Our next step is adding transitional phrases and elaboration. Students have already recognized on their own that right now our essays feel like they are "missing something"....that helps to emphasize the importance of those two areas!

Our early civilization Adobe Spark pages are almost ready for our virtual museum! We will have our "wander & wonder" activity next week to explore the exhibits!!

We also learned about Sora. Sora ( https://soraapp.com )is an online library that allows students to find and read books right on their Chromebooks! This is a great resource if students can't find a book at our school library, or if they don't have a change to visit the library. Sora allows students to easily search for books and check the Lexile/reading level. They can even read sample pages to see if they are interested.

Don't forget that conferences are next week. You will receive a reminder from Signup Genius two days prior to your scheduled slot and time. I have also included the links below if you want to review your  date and time sooner.  Remember, you are only signing up for one conference with your child's homeroom teacher.  Have a wonderful weekend!!

Mrs. Carr's Homeroom Conferences

Mrs. Ottman's Homeroom Conferences

Take a Peek at Our Week!

We had a busy week! Ms. Gilmore came in to teach both classes how to use Adobe Spark Page. We are using this platform for our early civilization research. Next week we will have a "virtual museum" to share our projects using the "wander & wonder" strategy to help us record our new thinking. The students are off to a great start!

In writing, we focused on introduction paragraphs and body paragraphs. Students peer edited after both to ensure that they had the proper structure, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation. We will use the peer editing strategy throughout the year. The students worked so well together, and it shows in their writing! Next step~conclusion paragraphs! After our Titanic essays are written, we will go back and work on elaboration, transitions, and vocabulary.

Villa of Hope came to visit on Wednesday to wrap up their lessons! They gave us a TON of resources that will allow us to continue this great work throughout the year. We put together a daily mental health check-in with the strategies we learned to keep us healthy and positive throughout the week.

We have been sharing our feelings and strategies during our daily class meetings. It is wonderful to hear students bounce ideas off of one another and support each other. 

Finally, we caught our first glimpse of SNOW today! Some may say it's too early....but the kiddos always get excited when they see that white stuff out of the window! :-) Have a wonderful weekend!!

Weekly News for November 9th!

Take a Peek at Our Week!

We had our second jigsaw activity in Individuals & Society! Students shared their research for the family structures and customs/games of their expert civilizations. As their group members shared, students looked for similarities and differences between all three groups. Next week, Ms. Gilmore will be coming to our classroom to teach us how to use Adobe Spark page. We will use this platform for our final expert civilization projects!

On Wednesday, we celebrated Halloween with Mrs. Ottman's Class, Mrs. Brown's Class, and Mrs. Cummings' Class! We ate lots of yummy breakfast treats, colored Halloween pictures for L.O.T.E., and watched a spooky movie. So much fun!

In writing, we worked on our introduction paragraphs for our Titanic essays. We also reviewed the different ways to "hook" a reader's attention! We are enjoying using Google docs for our writing assignments!

Congratulations to students who hit their October Reading Goals!!! I am so proud of you!! Keep on reading!! :-)

Weekly News for November 2nd!