I can't believe we already find ourselves in November; this year is flying by! Our Nature's Classroom trip was a huge success, and I very much enjoyed getting to know the kids a bit more, watching them flourish in a new environment! Below are some updates as to what we have been up to in Literacy/SS class as well as what to expect in the weeks to come:
- We are finishing up our Realistic Fiction unit this week! Students will take a "cold read" assessment this Thursday-Friday. This is referred to as a "cold read" as it assesses students' abilities on a never-before-seen text. Additionally, the kids are finishing up their first full writing process, either in the last stages of revising or beginning to publish their Realistic Fiction stories. They will continue to work on these stories over the next few weeks, at which time we'll be able to share our writing and celebrate the students' hard work! - Our classes are going to begin the next Literacy Unit on November 18th. Light & Sound is a unit that combines Science-focused content with reading/writing informational texts. Students will do much of the Science with Mrs. Brown and will focus writing (comparing and contrasting, organized expository paragraphs) and reading (identifying the main idea in nonfiction texts, differentiating between main ideas and supporting details) with me! - We are in the final stages of our 1st Social Studies unit: The First Americans. Students are working in groups to develop an in-depth understanding of specific indigenous tribes, and will present their information to the class on Tuesday, November 26th! We will begin our next SS unit (European Exploration) when we return to school after Thanksgiving. - Over the past few months I have introduced a few new routines/activities that I'd like to share with you. One is the use of a mentor sentence. Each week we intensely focus on one sentence, labeling the parts of speech, sharing what we notice about the sentence's language and organization, making inferences, revising the sentence, and identifying aspects of the author's writing we'd like to emulate. I also use the mentor sentence and its content to teach new skills and concepts. On Fridays students take a quiz to demonstrate their understanding of the concepts learned throughout the week. Another new routine revolves around TED Talks! I place a lot of emphasis on encouraging students to be open to growing as thinkers, and this activity taps into that idea. Typically I'll show a short, kid-appropriate TED Talk, give students an opportunity to take notes as they watch and chat about what they saw, and then ask students to write a brief response of any kind (a deliberately-vague assignment). This might entail sharing what they now wonder about the speaker or the talk, making connections between the talk and their own lives/something else they've seen or learned, sharing their opinions about the talk, etc. We've only done this once so far, but students seemed excited to learn more about the world! Ask your child about the first TED Talk we watched! - We continue to work on building independence, time-management, and managing social pressures and interests vs. academic expectations. I'm also pushing students with regard to building reading and writing stamina. In addition, I always stress with my students the importance of being able to advocate for oneself, asking friends to stop talking, moving away from friends when unable to focus, etc. It would be helpful if you could echo this message at home as well. - If you have not yet signed and returned your child's 1st MP Progress Report, please do so ASAP as they were due on on November 1st. If you haven't yet signed the Progress Report because you never saw it, please let me know and I will make another copy for you! Thanks for taking time to read all of this VERY long update! Have a wonderful week! -Katelyn Tavolacci
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