Gratitude

I am thankful for a wonderful fall 

and the creation of an amazing group of students 

that have learned how to work together as a team!

       

   I  hope you all had a relaxing Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family. It was beautiful weather and so nice to be able to spend time outdoors. I enjoyed meeting with all of you before the holiday and getting a chance to share the many exciting things your children have done over the past few months of school. Please remember that you do not need to wait until the next set of conferences to contact me if you need an update. I am always available :)

  This week we will be starting a new research project. Each student will be responsible for working in a collaborative team to research a traditional holiday from around the world. They will each individually write a research paper and as a group prepare a Google Presentation that will be shared with the class the few days before we leave for break. Your child may need to do extra research online or at the library in order to find all of the necessary information. As with all projects this is an open ended project and I love it when the students add flare to their presentations. Information will be given to the students over the next couple of days, please contact me if they are unclear about the assignment or requirements. They will be given time at school to complete 50 - 75% of it.

  Enjoy the next 3 1/2 weeks they go by fast!

Thank you!

Hi Folks!

It has taken me a while to get reorganized after our awesome week, but I am finally ready to sit down and write about all of our fabulous activities. The students, and I must admit myself too, had SO much fun exploring pumpkins. We wrote poems and persuasive essays about them. We measured and observed them. We put together character traits to "find" them during the "Great Pumpkin Heist" and finally we dissected them. If your child hasn't already shared some of the exciting things we learned about pumpkins please ask them to share.

Now it is time to get back into our normal routine. We are studying a new list of vocabulary words this week, as well as continuing our personal narratives. This week we are specifically exploring how we can expand our writing through the use of paragraphs.

In reading, we are learning the individual roles that we will practice when we begin independent literature circles after Thanksgiving break. We also had our first two book talks today. The students are really showing their creativity and engaging each other in learning about new books. I can't wait to see more.

An important update on testing is that we will be having our first Social Studies benchmark on Tuesday November 10th and our first Science benchmark on Friday November 13th. That is just next week. Stay tuned as study materials go up on the homework tab.

Finally a big thank you to the parent volunteers for putting together wonderful snacks for our Poetry Cafe and a fun project for our Harvest Celebration! It was a fun time all around!!!