Newsletter for March 11, 2016

What We Learned This Week

Word Study
Students continued with last week's patterns (i vowel patterns and -ing verb rules). I also introduced articles a, an, and the. a is used before nouns or adjective/noun combinations when the adjective or noun begins with a consonant sound; an is used before a vowel sound, and the is used when referencing a specific thing(s).

Reading Workshop
Students responded to texts, constructing opinion pieces that used personal opinion and cited the text. The greatest area for improvement is taking the next step to explicitly explain why the opinion and reference support a student's opinion. Without adding the because students are simply copying the essay. I think they made great strides through sharing and critiquing. We will continue this next week.

Emily Arrow

Students were treated to the music of Emily Arrow, a gifted young song writer who turns books into song.

Writing Workshop
Students finished drafting, editing and publishing pen pals. This also gave them experience keyboarding and using Google Docs to share work with me.

Math Workshop
We are firmly into measurement. Students continued to review time and all of its facets (reading analog clocks to the minute; recognizing quarter past, half past, quarter till and o'clock; determining elapsed time, start time and end time). We also started measurement to the nearest quarter inch and nearest centimeter. This provided us with a good opportunity to review fractions. We also began studying line plots, bar graphs, area and perimeter. Some students still confuse area and perimeter. I remind them that area is similar to array (a model of multiplication) and perimeter has the word rim in it.

Science
Students are working on presenting their inventions. We are emphasizing presentation skills (engaging their audience, projecting their voices, using their boards and prototypes to present, etc.). I'm really pleased with this year's work and I am excited to share it next Friday.

Art
Students are working on weaving in art with Dr. Myers.

Important Dates & Reminders

I will highlight new and changed dates on subsequent posts in red.

There will not be a newsletter next week. I'm looking forward to seeing you at the Invention Convention. Have a lovely spring break!

March 14 - recycled instruments due
March 15 - Voting Day, students eat in the classroom. No peanut products please.
March 17 - 3rd Grade Musical Performance directed by Mrs. Delcamp 7:00-7:30pm.
March 18 - Invention Convention 10:00-10:45am
March 18 - End of 3rd quarter
March 21 through 25 - Spring Break No School
March 28 - No School Teacher Grading Day

Please make sure your student has a working pair of headphones or earbuds for April testing! There will be auditory components to the state math test.

April 5 - Progress Reports sent home
April 6 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
April 12 & 13 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
April 20 & 21 - Ohio Mathematics Assessment
April 29 - Kids Fest 5 till 8pm

May 27 - Last Day of School for Students

Newsletter March 4, 2016

What We Learned This Week

Word Study
My Within Word group is studying long i syllable types: -y (fly), VCe (mice), -igh (flight), VCC (child). The VCC is the most challenging as VC and VCC patterns typically represent short vowel sounds and closed syllables (closed by the consonant(s)) (e.g., twin, wind, etc.).

The Syllable Juncture group is studying present tense -ing endings. They are learning that words that base words with a VC pattern double the consonant (swim becomes swimming) and base words with  a VCC pattern just add -ing (rest becomes resting).

Reading Workshop
Students studied facts versus opinions. This gets very tricky for 8 and 9 year olds when they share a fact that is a personal opinion. For example, it is an opinion that mint chocolate chip ice cream is the best kind of ice cream. However, it is a fact that I think mint chocolate chip ice cream is the best kind of ice cream.

Students reviewed main idea and inference as well, supporting both with evidence.

Writing Workshop
Having spent so much time researching and taking notes on our African American biographies, I found our writing had regressed. In response, we focused on writing this week with daily paragraphs for our pen pal letters. Using checklists which held students accountable for convention and content, I saw our writing improve quickly.

Students should be independent (with the help of a checklist) for the following writing components:
- Respond to the prompt
- Clear topic sentence
- Minimum of 6 details (5 W's, 5 senses, Feelings)
- Clear conclusion
- Indent paragraph
- Capital letters at the beginnings of all sentences
- Capitalized proper nouns
- Punctuation at the end of sentences

Challenge elements include:
- Sentence variation (longer and shorter sentences)
- Rich vocabulary
- Transition words
- Not conversational (Outlaws: I'm going to tell you... That's what I know about... I hope you like...)

Math Workshop
We are studying measurement. Students should be able to tell time to the minute, hour, quarter-past, half-past, and quarter-till. Students should also be able to determine the missing variable when given two variables to an elapsed time story problem. For example, Christopher started cleaning his bedroom at 12:15. He finished at 3:45. How long did Christopher work on his bedroom? Please ask your child to tell you the time using an analog clock as often as possible and challenge them to tell you how many minutes till future times (e.g., bedtime).

I introduced using rulers to measure length to the nearest quarter inch and to use this data to create line plots.

Several students have asked for resources for learning math facts. Having used up my bag of tricks and a strategy approach, I recommend using flashcards for any student who has not yet mastered their facts. Make a pile of "don't know" cards and hit them for a few minutes daily. I asked colleagues for some additional online suggestions. They shared the following websites you may want to look at. iPads also have apps you can use, many of which are free. I like the ease of flashcards, but each student is different.

Front Row Math,
https://www.frontrowed.com/

NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics)
http://www.nctm.org/Classroom-Resources/Interactives/

Illuminations
http://calculationnation.nctm.org/

Science
Invention Convention prototypes and completed presentation boards are due next Friday, March 11th.

Garden permission slips are due March 17th.

I love getting to watch other teachers and I got to observe a 5th grade science design challenge. I modified it slightly for our class. Students worked in teams to build the slowest marble run.

Important Dates and Reminders

From Mrs. Nolan and Ms. O'Keefe...

2016­2017 Student Placement Procedures

This is the time of year when parents and teachers begin to think about next year’s class placement for our students. The classroom teachers, the school counselor, special area teachers, support staff and the principal will collaborate to form next year’s classes.

The placement of students into classroom groups for next year is an important task that we take very seriously. It is our goal to create balanced groups of learners that will facilitate the maximum growth for each child, both academically and socially. Many factors are considered when placing students in classes.

Work habits and behaviors, leadership skills, academic achievement, social needs and teaching and learning styles help us to build learning communities that will support the needs of each learner.
In order to help us select the best placement for your child(ren), we ask that you honor the following:
- ​​Discussing classroom placement with your child’s current teacher or any Windermere staff members places them in a difficult position. Kindly direct questions/concerns to Mrs. Nolan or Mrs. O’Keefe.
- Decisions about your child’s classroom placement are made in collaboration with other colleagues and depend upon many social, emotional and academic considerations.
- Due to the complexity of the classroom placement procedures, we cannot honor a parent’s request for a specific teacher. We will review comments that focus on the learning or social needs of your child. Again, we cannot accommodate requests for placements with a specific teacher or with friends.

Submitting the form is not mandatory, but rather, optional.​We believe this procedure will create balanced, educationally sound class groups, which will ultimately benefit all of our students. Please feel free to submit your thoughts and insights by returning the form to Mrs. O’Keefe no later than Thursday, April 1, 2016. Please return one form for each child. ​No forms can be accepted after April 1, 2016.​

Thank you for your help in this process. The Windermere Staff 

Important Dates and Reminders

I will highlight new and changed dates on subsequent posts in red.

March 2 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

March 11 - Invention Convention prototypes due. See previous post.
March 15 - Voting Day, students eat in the classroom. No peanut products please. 

March 17 - 3rd Grade Musical Performance directed by Mrs. Delcamp 7:00-7:30. Please do not send in instruments till the 14th. With the garden harvest and Invention Convention already going on, we don't have room. Thank you.

March 18 - Invention Convention in the Multipurpose Room 10:00-10:45

March 18 - End of Third Quarter

March 21 through 25 - No School Spring Break

March 28 - No School Teacher Grading Day

Please make sure your student has a working pair of headphones or earbuds for April testing! There will be auditory instructions on some assessments.

April 5 - Progress Reports sent home

April 6 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

April 12 and 13 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment

April 20 and 21 - Ohio Mathematics Assessment

April 29 - Kid Fest 5 to 8pm

May 27 - Last Day of School for Students