General News
- No school on Monday! Enjoy your long weekend!
- The initial round of biography research is due in class this Tuesday, September 3rd. This due date is primarily to help your kiddos (and you!) scaffold the work of research and get some teacher feedback. On Tuesday we will take a quick peek at what they’ve done so far and send it back with them ASAP.
- Check your email for our bi-monthly parent email!
ELA Update
This week we gained some important historical context to help with our understanding and comprehension while reading The Witch of Blackbird Pond. We talked about the Patriot vs. Loyalist conflict during this time as well as different cultural and lifestyle components of the 13 colonies. We then partnered up with a classmate to design our own 14th colony. In order to make a colony we had to consider who was funding our colony, how we would get there, what our religion would be, and what kind of trade and commerce we would engage in, and if we were going to be Patriots, Loyalists, or remain neutral. This fun little project was 50% historically accurate and 50% fantasy/fiction embellishment. We also explored colonial life more by learning what a day in the life of a colonial kid might have been like. We talked about the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd point of view in literature. Our book is written in 3rd person but we took some time this week to rewrite part of the story from Kit’s perspective in 1st person. We also used time this week to introduce the “plot mountain” and to talk about checking books out from our classroom library. We will use the plot mountain constantly throughout the year as a framework for thinking and talking about books. This framework helps us consider the theme (moral/lesson the author wants us to learn) from a story as well as how the main conflict impacts action in a story.
Math Update
It was another fantastic week in math–lots of great risk-taking and high stamina for working both independently and collaboratively. Both groups explored the importance (and practical helpfulness) of learning to estimate BEFORE computing in order to “see” if an answer is reasonable. We then branched into more formal rounding practice with Year 1 students rounding big numbers to the millions and Year 2 students working with rounding decimals. We explored these concepts with an interactive Nearpod activity, partnered games, dry-erase practice and riddle sheets. In addition to regular skill work, kids learned how to work grid logic problems (such a great way to build critical thinking skills) and “Try-A-Tile” logic puzzles. They ATE it up! It is so invigorating to have such enthusiastic math-letes! 😀
Theme Update
Wow! This week gammas got to practice their research skills and they showed off just how enthusiastic, engaged, and capable they are! We started off Monday with introducing our Revolutionary War P&P biography research project. Gammas were randomly assigned to research a person that played a key role during this period of history. There was a lot of excitement around this! We also had a mini lesson this day on note-taking skills. We discussed the purpose of taking notes as well as learned a few tricks and tips for how to take good quality notes. This lesson will benefit them all year long but especially while they are researching for their project. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we got to apply these awesome skills and also practice for our P&P project by researching and collaborating with classmates to learn about Christopher Columbus. We used print articles and videos to help learn more about his life and contribution to the founding of America. We finished out the week by creating a poster about Christopher Columbus so that others can learn all about him.
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