Weekly News for January 25th!

D.A.R.E. Graduation!

We had a wonderful D.A.R.E. graduation this afternoon with Dr. Rudd and Deputy Rick! Thank you to all of the parents who were able to attend. Below are some pictures if you could not make it. :-)

Take a Peek at Our Week!

In Individuals & Society we focused on interactions between our expert explorers and the natives they encountered on their journeys. Students shared their research through a "chalk talk". "Chalk talks" involve students communicating only through writing. They can respond to questions, build off of each other's answers, and change/deepen their thinking on a topic. Students identified positive and negative interactions, made inferences as to why negative interactions occurred, and also extended their thinking on the topic by determining what could have been done differently to avoid negativity. So many insightful responses!!! This activity hits our ATL foci for our current Lang & Lit and Individuals & Society planners; COMMUNICATION and THINKING!

In Lang & Lit, we continued our work with making inferences as we read. This week, we focused on longer articles and sharpened our annotation skills by writing our inferences directly on the text to help deepen our thinking or figure out something that was not directly stated by the author. This was another opportunity to hit our ATL focus-THINKING! The students took a short formative assessment on inferences at the end of the week which was sent home for your reference. Next week we will focus on point of view and analyzing multiple accounts of the same event/topic. 

We completed our second informational essays on student-selected topics! We peer edited our work on Friday and even used Google Translate as a way to further check our pieces. I will give students feedback using our informational writing rubric next week. We will also discuss areas that need further editing/attention based on the rubric as a way to prepare for our informational writing assessment! 

The New Year has brought another commitment to our class-setting individual weekly goals on Mondays! We discussed how writing goals down and keeping them visible all week helps us to hold ourselves more accountable. We checked in on our progress on Wednesday during our class meeting. Here are our first goals from the week:

Have a great weekend!  

Weekly News for January 11th!

Important Information Regarding DARE Graduation

Hello Parents!

Friday is DARE Graduation @ 1:30. If you plan on signing your child out to take them home after the ceremony, I will need a written note by Friday morning informing the office who is taking your child home.

Additionally, classroom teachers will be signing out students who are leaving directly from the ceremony. We will make an announcement at the ceremony, but I wanted you to be aware ahead of time so that you will know what to expect:

1. Please see me at the end of the ceremony so I can sign your child out.

** Please do not take your child to the front desk to sign them out.

2. You will receive a "DARE" sticker after signing out with me.Please put this on your shirt as this will inform the front desk that you have signed your child out properly with me and they will not stop you.

Thank you!!!

Two Schools, One Book Annoucement!

Please click the link below to find out what book has been selected:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YrXKWd1Q83Y

Also a reminder that tonight is Night at the Village-students who attend will receive their free books! Food will be served starting at 5:30 and activities begin at 6:00! 

Take a Peek at Our Week!

It was so good seeing the kiddos after a long break! As usual, they jumped right back in and didn't skip a beat! In Lang & Lit this week we practiced making inferences. Inferring involves combining text evidence with our schema/what we already know in order to draw conclusions or figure things out that are not directly stated in the text. Making inferences helps us to think deeper about a topic and understand the topic better. We practiced by using a series of pictures and our "see, think, wonder" strategy to draw conclusions about what happened in each scenario.

We also had a little competition to see which groups could sort statements by identifying if they were an inference or direct statement. They LOVED this.....especially the sweet candy reward at the end! :-)

 We practiced this skill further in reading groups using shorter texts. We included accountable talk statements connected to inferences as well (I wonder, this means, it could be that, this connects to, I think, I predict). Next week, we will resharpen our annotating skills and apply making inferences while reading longer informational texts. We have some interesting topics to investigate like the coldest place in the world and "weird" Olympic sports that no longer exist! That should give us a lot to discuss!!!

In writing, students selected topics for our second informational essay, determined three categories related to their topic, and completed their research. Next week, students will independently write their essays and peer edit on Friday. After peer editing, I will give students feedback using our informational writing rubric. This essay will not be a formal assessment, but instead serve as a gauge to help students determine what they still need to work on and what areas have improved!

Finally, here are the students who achieved their December reading goal!! Keep up the great work!!!

Have a wonderful weekend!!!