Friday, April 29

Hello Friends and Families!

Here are the updates from this week.

Conferences

Conferences this week have been fantastic!  I am so proud of the students of 108 who have stepped up to really show what they have learned!  I am looking forward to the rest of the conferences next week.

Our Learning

We haven't wasted a moment since coming back from vacation.  This week we launched our new Mysteries of Science unit.  Students started by strengthening their powers of observation while testing minerals. We learned about luster (how shiny a mineral is), hardness (with scratch tests), translucence (determining how much light can pass through), and magnetism, to name a few qualities.  Students are honing their detective skills and will use these to solve a mystery...yet to be revealed!

Our Reading unit has also supported the science curriculum.  Next week, students will start new book clubs and we will be reading mysteries.  To prepare for this, this week we reviewed the structures of a book club including how to have a discussion and how to prepare for the discussion.  Students also learned about the skills necessary to be a detective and in a pre-assessment, rated themselves on a scale of 1-10 for each skill.  We will be focusing on strengthening these skills, such as noticing details, making observations, taking notes, analyzing, and supporting conclusions.

In Writing we have strengthened our skill of observation and description.  We started a poetry unit this week and students have leapt right in!  We looked for lines of poems that spoke to us and then talked about why we liked these lines.  Students then read a poem by Ntozake Shange called "What a Poem Shd Do."  They decided what they thought a good poem should do and then wrote their own poem.  Students continued using their skills of observation and description by looking at ordinary objects and seeing them through a "poet's eyes" - seeing them for their possibilities.  We wrapped up the week by comparing a scientific description with a poetic description and used similes to help us do this.  Here is a sample of one student's simile: "A baseball moves as fast as a cheetah...and when you hit it, it cracks like thunder."  Next week we will continue to observe and describe the world through poets' eyes.

In Math we wrapped up our graphing and patterns unit and started our new unit on fractions.  Students brainstormed all they know about fractions and started by defining what a fraction is.  After a thoughtful discussion, we agreed that fractions aren't only made up of parts, but those parts have to be equal.  We imagined a pan of brownies and determined different ways the brownies could be shared equally.  Then, we reviewed how to label a fraction accurately.  Next week we will continue our work by making fraction kits and learning how to put fractions in size order.

This week also brought the sad news of my departure.  As you have read in my email and letter, I will not be returning to Graham and Parks next year.  Kathy and Jen joined me yesterday as we shared this information with the class.  As I told them yesterday, once you are a student of Meg, you are always a student of Meg!  Before I leave I will be sure to pass on my contact information and would love to keep in touch.  I am looking forward to a fantastic end to the year with an amazing group of kids!

Sincerely,
Meg