Exploring The Shadows

We just completed our class read aloud, The Shadows.  What a wild ride!  Many friends have expressed an interest in continuing the series or further exploring Olive's world.  Check out the author's website, where you can explore the Dunwoody home, learn about the author, play games, and watch videos related to the book by clicking here.

          

Reading BINGO!

There was a reader, had a book and BINGO was his game-o!

This year, students will be participating in Reading Bingo.  This program is meant to help our students meet the expectation of reading 6 chapter books every nine weeks. 

 Each time a student complete a chapter book, they mark an appropriate box on the Bingo board, found in their Reading folder.  Many books could fit in multiple boxes, but students may mark only one box for each book.  Students have the option of receiving a "Bingo" by completing five boxes in a row (vertically, horizontally, or diagonally) and an additional sixth book, or simply ping-ponging around the board.  Students that do get a "Bingo,"  will earn a prize at the end of the nine weeks.  After marking a box students should flip the board over and complete the corresponding line on the back. 

Students are also responsible for 3 books responses.  They may choose any three books of the six they complete.  To help students stay on track with their responses, deadlines have been assigned and can be found on the back of the Bingo board.  When a student selects a completed chapter book, they should review the response options found in their folder.  Written response templates can be found in our Reading Bingo Response File in the classroom.  Students are welcome to work on their responses in class or at home.  Once the response is complete, students should place them in the appropriate page protector in their Reading folder until the deadline, when they will be collected by the teacher.

Completion of the Reading Bingo board and responses is a small portion of students’ ELA grade.  This program allows us to monitor students’ reading progress and their thinking about the books they read.  In correlation with reading logs, this enables us to closely follow the habits of our readers and assist them in growing as readers.

To help your child in this new process:

•      Make sure your child is completing their 30 minutes of leisure reading each night.  Just like anything in life, practice is needed to grow our skills.  To become a better reader, students must read!

•     Check to make sure your child is reading “just right” books.  These will be books that your child reads with ease, i.e. not too hard and no too easy.  They should be able to read about ¾ of a page per minute and should be able to talk about the book in detail.  Students can use our “three finger rule” to double check if a book is a good fit!

•     Check the planner and newsletter for reminders about deadlines.

•  Make sure your child is reading one chapter book at a time.  Students should be reading the same book in home and at school, carrying the book between places.

Each nine weeks, students will receive a new Bingo board and start the process over (6 new books, 3 responses).  Let the fun begin!

The Scoop on Homework

This is the homework breakdown for our ELA class this year:

Spelling:  Students have received their words for the entire year.  This updated list can be found in the TOTO Folder.  We will start studying List 1 on Monday.  We will study each list for two weeks.  Students should select one homework option from the list of choices (also on the word list in their TOTO Folder) for each list.  Homework for spelling List 1 will be due September 12th.

Reading:  

1. Students should read from a "just right" book for at least 30 minutes each night and record it on their reading log.  A "just right" book is not too easy or too hard.  If a book is "just right" your child will read about one page per minute.  Look at your child's log to see how they are doing.  We will collect the logs every two weeks.  

***We are also asking that your child read one book at a time from cover to cover.  They should either take a book from home back and forth to school, or a book from school back and forth to home.  

2. Students should complete the Brainbuilder each week.  It is a mini comprehension test that is aligned with the new standards.  It will give you a glimpse of your child's ability to understand what they read, but please be mindful that it is much shorter than the assessment passages used in class.

Each Brainbuilder consists of a short passage and is followed by several questions.  Tips are provided and students are highly encouraged to use strategies learned in class (We've already learned the BAM! strategy so be sure to ask your child about it).  These will be distributed each Friday and will be due the following Friday.  We passed out the first one today and it will be due September 5th.

3.  Reading Bingo is a fun way to make sure your child is reading a variety of books.  This overlaps with the reading they are already doing.  Check this week's newsletter and an upcoming blog post for more info on this fun accountability system!

Skills:  Students will get a skill packet every two weeks.  We will discuss the skills in class and complete a portion of the skill packet each morning.  Students are encouraged to study the packet for the skill quiz, but they should not work ahead to complete it at home.  The skill quiz will be taken with the spelling quiz every other Friday.  Students will get their first skill packet on Monday, and it will go back and forth in their TOTO Folder.  The first skill quiz will be on September 12th.

Please feel free to email us with any questions or concerns. :)  Enjoy the long weekend!  We hope it's a relaxing one for your family.

Starting the Year off "Just Right"

Welcome readers!  We are so excited to embark on this year-long journey with you.  Our classroom library is packed with books, anxiously awaiting to be read, but as readers we know we must make smart choices about the books we choose.  Studies show, to grow as readers we need to be given lots of opportunities for high success reading.  This means we must read "just right" books.  Much like Goldilocks, we are looking for that perfect fit; books that are not too easy and not too hard.  In class we have discussed the signs that a book is "just right" for us and have hung a chart as a reminder.  A general rule of thumb is that we should be able to read approximately 3/4 of a page a minute. 

By looking at the # of pages read and minutes read,
we can tell this book is a "just right" fit.

Our reading logs are an excellent tool in allowing us to monitor and assess our habits as readers.  Make sure to log your in class and leisure reading each day. We want to make

reading the best it can be this year! 

Second Step Character Education

On long Wednesdays, our class will use a portion of the day to participate in Second Step, a character education program provided by the district.  Last week, students learned to closely observe the facial expressions of other people, as well as the way they carry their body (i.e. are they standing tall and proud or are their shoulders slumped).  We discussed how students can be body language detectives to make guesses about how other people are feeling.  This information can be useful in any environment.  We talked about how we could use this information to help people around us.  For instance, if we notice a good friend who is slumped over with a frown on their face, we might go up to them and ask, "Hey, how are things going?  Are you okay?"

This week our empathy training continues with a focus on changing feelings.  We will practice identifying a person's feeling, or emotion, by looking for the body language clues in their face and body, in their words, and in the situation itself.  We will then talk about how people can have different feelings about the same situation and how people's feelings can change.  Ask your child about Jenni and Kyle and "The Great Milk Spill" for examples of these concepts.

We're off to see the wizard!

Our week is now underway, and we're off on our reading and writing adventures.

We gathered together as a school community to begin soaring towards success!  We got to watch our principal take flight with Dorothy in a real, live hot air balloon!  It was quite an "Ozsome" sight.

Inside the classroom, we began soaring towards success by making a promise to each other.  We call it "The Class Promise" and we all agreed to follow it this year.  Take a peek at our promise:

What did you think of the hot air balloon?  What's your favorite part of The Class Promise.  Leave us a comment to get this year off to a great start!

We're not in Kansas anymore!

We hope you had a refreshing and relaxing summer vacation, so you're ready to join us in Oz this year!  We are Miss Hoffmann (the tall one) and Mrs. Z (the one with glasses), and we will be your reading and writing teachers this year.  We are excited for you to...

Dear Galileo

In our study of the Sun, we have learned about an important scientific tool:  the telescope.  Scientists use this tool to make distant objects (things that are far away) appear closer.  This is helpful because it helps astronomers to study objects in space and learn new things!

Galileo made some of the first discoveries in space, using an early version of the telescope.  It was much less powerful than the ones scientists use to study space in modern times.  We watched a video and read articles about this important scientist, who is often referred to as "the father of modern science."

Students then discussed what they had recorded in their notebooks with groups and partner pairings, before writing a letter to Galileo.  They wanted to tell him how the world has changed because of his early space discoveries, since many of his findings were disputed and rejected during his lifetime.

Students were able to share their letters, and if you scroll down, you can enjoy some of our letters as well!

Ava's Letter

Ben's Letter

Maddie's Letter

The Jungle Journal for the Week of 3/3/14

Reminders

Scholastic orders should be placed online by Thursday, March 6^th.   Thank you for supporting our classroom and helping us build our library!

FCAT Parent Night is this Tuesday, March 4^th at 7:00 PM.  The meeting will be held in our classroom, room 226.

Readers’ Workshop

This week will work to closely analyze texts, noticing that the reading with the lens of word choice helps us to develop clearer ideas about the central message of a text.  Students will notice how words are chosen thoughtfully by authors to create a tone and reinforce their perspective.  We will then begin research projects in small groups, working to study a variety of texts on the same topic, comparing the texts and developing theories.  Ask your child what topic their group is studying.

In order to hold students accountable for their in-class and nightly reading, we are now logging our reading on a reading log.  This log, which will be a portion of students’ Reading Habits grade, should be completed by the student and signed by a parent each night.

At this point, we have collected four BINGO Responses.  Check your child’s Reading BINGO Folder to see if they are on track.  If they have missed a response, it is not too late to make it up!  

Our 5^th BINGO Response is due Tuesday, March 11^th.

Writers’ Workshop

This week we dive into our information writing unit.  Students have selected a topic on which they are an expert and will begin to construct writing for the purpose of teaching others.  We will experiment with the organization of our information, determining what we believe will be the most effective structure for our chosen topics.  Our previous unit on text structures will prove most beneficial for this activity!  

Skills

There will be no spelling homework or quiz this week.

Social Studies

We will begin our new unit on the regions of America.  We will start with the southeast.   We will spend the next two weeks placing the applicable states on a map before studying the land and water, climate, resources, and landmarks of this region we call home.  Visit the blog to take advantage of a cool study link that your child can use to practice mapping the states for each region throughout this unit of study.  The quiz will be next Friday.

Math

Our fraction unit will come to an end this week.  The quiz will be Thursday.  Students should study and review their white packets in order to prepare.  We will spend our last sessions playing “Capture Fractions,” which is similar to the card game “War.”  As a result of this game, students will undoubtedly have disagreements about which fraction is actually larger.  So, we will review how to compare fractions to landmark numbers to settle these debates.  We will also practice placing fraction cards on a number line to see them in relation to other fractions and whole numbers.  The hands-on nature of this series of lessons is very powerful in clearing up some final comparison misconceptions.

 Science

We continue our study of the Sun, but we will ask a new question about our nearest star:  What is radiant energy?  We already know that the Sun provides heat and light energy to Earth.  We will move past that to discuss how radiant energy from the Sun can heat objects, but that when the Sun is not present, this heat can be lost.  Students will utilize their knowledge of the scientific method and the practice of science to design an experiment (as a large group) that shows how the temperature of a cup of tap water can be changed without tools like microwaves or refrigerators.  There will be no quiz this week.  Instead, students will submit their lab notes for a classwork grade.