update 2-14

Happy Valentine's Day!  This week, we worked on the reading standards of reasons and evidence.  We have been reading opinions related to a topic and identifying reasons the author used to support their ideas before deciding to write their own.  We have read about whether school music programs are important, having robotic pets versus real pets, year round schooling, and lastly chocolate milk versus white milk.

Currently, we are reading about whether or not schools should be serving chocolate milk in cafeterias.   Each class was split about evenly on the first day before reading.  They had to decide how they thought.  We will see how the thinking shifts...

Kids are finishing an Explorer Project that is integrated with Social Studies.  That is due this Thursday and kids will share those in class.  All kids had time last Friday, Monday, and today to work on the projects.  See some samples below.

The AIR test for ELA is coming up in March...we are working hard to prepare for it!  Reading Counts is due by March 15.

February Book Projects

The book projects were a success!  Such creativity!

update 2-1

Happy February!  Hopefully everyone enjoyed their snow day at home yesterday.

Currently, we are reading our book club books in school and you should see those come home too.  There were many choices to pick from and students chose their top 3 favorites to read.  We have been working in class on stopping and jotting down our thoughts as we read.  The message, "Reading is Thinking" has been focused on too.   Today, we had a book club meeting for 5 minutes and then reflected afterwards on how we thought it went.  Each class set expectations for these meetings and did a great job!

There are two assignments for students to complete for homework this week.  One is the Digital Readworks article and the other is the Google Classroom log writing a paragraph.  Next week, a book project will be assigned for the book club book.

Today, we also took the computerized SRI test to show our reading growth from the beginning of the year to now.  This will be computed as a number and that information with results will go home soon.

In writing, we just finished our final version of the Changes During WW2 essay.  The focus was on giving clear, specific evidence to support our thinking.  Giving topic sentences that tell the reader what they will read about was another focus.

Reading Counts Goals are due by March 15.