Newsletter for January 20, 2013

Important Dates & Reminders

Our library days are: January 24; February 7, 22; March 8, 22; April 16, 30; and May 14, 29.

You'll soon be hearing from our room parents regarding making donations for the Ohio Wildlife Center's Valentines Day visit. Please let me know if you have any questions. These donations pay for their visit. You can visit their website to learn more about them at: http://www.ohiowildlifecenter.org/dnn/Conferences

Progress reports will be sent home on January 29, 2013. In the meantime, I will be scheduling conferences with the families of students who are performing below grade level.

What We Learned This Week

We had a busy week of assessments, but we also had some great learning opportunities.

Homework

It is important that students answer their reading homework questions in complete sentences: 

- Begin with a capital letter.

- Capitalize any proper nouns.

- End with punctuation.

- Include a who (subject) and a what (action).

Students should also use the text to spell words correctly. I am spot checking homework and having students redo it at school if they have not done the above. 

Reading

We are nearly finished with our read aloud, The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg as we have reached the Battle of Gettysburg. I will be starting a new read aloud soon. Students are continuing to respond to the text as Homer.

Writing

Students are writing persuasive arguments on a variety of topics. I've been very pleased with their growth and have seen them transfer this skill to other assignments. They are starting to construct arguments with supporting details. So... watch out at home:) They're becoming very persuasive.

Sir Isaac Newton

Science

We  utilized Sir Isaac Newton's Laws of Motion for a collaborative challenge in constructing marble runs. We'll expand this in the spring when we formally start our study of force and motion.

Democracy

Social Studies
We collaborated with Mrs. Graver, our enrichment teacher, to develop an understanding of democracy. Led by our enrichment students we adopted a system of checks and balances that mirrors our federal government with legislative, executive and judicial branches. Students suggested laws, each table representing an independent community or state. The laws then went through the Senate, the House, and ultimately to the president. Our judicial committee then interpreted the laws. It was a great lesson and student reflections show they got a lot out of it. Hopefully, they have shared some of this with you.

Author, Susan Levine, illustrator, Erin Burchwell and the Ohio Bird Sanctuary visited this week to talk about Columbus and birds of prey.

Author Susan Levine

Representative from the Ohio Bird Sanctuary

Illustrator Erin Burchwell