Friday, April 15

Hello Friends and Families!

Here are the updates from this week.

Thank Yous!

Thanks to everyone who helped with the production of our beautiful field guide to Cambridge.  We couldn't have done it without you!  Thanks also to Aviva's family for donating playground balls to our classroom.

Conferences

Conferences will be held the week after vacation. I sent home confirmations for times to meet.  If you are unsure of when your conference is scheduled, please let me know.

Our Learning

We  are now finished with the Constructing Cambridge unit and so we will move on to our Science-based expeditions.  In our first unit we will learn the skills it takes to become a great detective.  The Mysteries of Science, which we are calling the unit, will ask students to develop skills of inquiry as they solve the Case of the Missing Mineral.  After two weeks of learning how to test and identify qualities of a mineral, students will have to identify a mystery mineral.  To go along with this, in Reading, we will do a genre study of mystery books.  Our book clubs will read mysteries and develop the same skills they need in the science portion, in order to solve the mysteries they are reading.  Our Writing unit will build off of the poetry we have been reading in the month of April.  Students will learn how to write poems and their poems will connect to the earth science we are learning.

In Math we are nearing the end of our Stories, Tables, and Patterns unit.  Students have learned about the aliens who inhabit the imaginary planet of Rhombar.  On this planet each alien receives a certain amount of marbles every night, and each alien starts with a different amount of marbles.  Students have learned how to organize a table of information, create a line graph representing that information, and are starting to notice trends when comparing graphs.  We have also learned how to have student-led discussions about our math.  We will wrap up the unit shortly after vacation and move on to a unit about Fractions.

 

Thanks again for all your support!  I am looking forward to meeting with you at the conferences!

Sincerely,
Meg