Week in Review: March 3, 2018

Hello Families,

Spring is just around the corner.  I can hardly wait.  March is Reading Month is kicking off this week.  Please encourage your child to join in on the fun.  We have a calendar of events planned for the month during the school day!  If you catch your son or daughter reading in a cozy spot around the house, snap a picture and email it to me.  I am going to start a "caught reading"  board.  A fun way to bring home into the classroom.   I also wanted to take a moment to tell you how awesome your children are.  They work hard, they are kind, and they make our classroom a fun place to be.  Nine and ten year olds are at such a critical time in their lives.  They are learning about how the world works around them, they make mistakes, and they learn how those mistakes affect other people.  However, I am so proud of how they work together and try to help lift each other up.

Reading and Writing

Right now in reading an writing, we are starting new units.  Your children are learning how to read a text closely to think more deeply about a text.  I have had such great conversations with your children this week.  We have been rereading a book called Fox.  Today we used the phrase "This makes me realize".  As we were reading our thoughts about the character Magpie, the children agreed that the story helped them realize that good friends are hard to find.  So that means we need to treat them with respect.  I have included the questions that we are using below.  Consider asking your children some of these questions about the books that they are reading at home. 

I hope that your child's writing about history writing made it home.  I am so proud of their hard work.  We worked together to set goals on next steps for writing. 

Math

We are in the middle of our fraction unit.  We have been working a lot with self reflection lately.  This week your child has been thinking about the learning targets and showing evidence of their learning.  We have had some really great conversations about what they understand and what they need help with.  Additionally, I have been having the kids write a problem similar to what we have been doing in class in their planners.  I suggested that they solve the problem at home and tell you what they learned in class that day.  We will finish up the unit next week and the BA will be on Monday, March 18th.  A study guide will go home next week.

Social Studies

We are continuing our United States Government this week.  We learned about the purpose of government and the Constitution last week.  This week we learned about the 3 branches of government and the powers of federal and state governments.  Next week we will be discussing the rights and responsibilities of citizens and the Bill of Rights.  The kids are super interested in these ideas.