Week 20 (January 19 – 23)
“The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.”
~Denis Waitley
As the year progresses I am giving students more and more
independence and responsibility! Many of you have noticed that there have been
slight changes in the homework, especially the reading log. Students have also
taken on their new jobs within the classroom. We are still working on getting
them out of the habit of doing their old job and into the habit of remembering
to do their new job. I’ve noticed that the kids take so much more pride and
interest in things that are their own.
Another responsibility I had the students take on was
setting 1 goal for themselves. This goal could be academic, behavioral, personal,
etc. Our goals are posted on our window to help remind us and to keep us
motivated!
Math
We are still working on addition with regrouping. The kids
are continuing to make progress and they are becoming very fluent with it. I’m
thrilled that they are showing growth with this concept, but I’m extremely
happy that their confidence level has risen. They went from being shaky and
unsure of themselves with addition to tackling a problem with certainty. We
will continue to work on addition with regrouping the next few weeks and in the
process we will be increasing value of the numbers that we are adding.
ELA
One thing everyone in our class (including me) loves most is
writing and reading! We’ve been working so hard to turn our ordinary stories
into WOW stories. We’ve talked about using description words and “fun” words
(as the kids describe them) to grow our writing. As it turns out these were
basically adjectives, adverbs, and onomatopoeia! So we are taking a closer look
at what these things actually are! We are also reading The One and Only Ivan
as a read aloud! The kids are absolutely in love with the book. It’s about a
silverback, an elephant, and a dog that are caged in at a mall for human
entertainment. The story has focused on animal rights, family, friends, and
death so far. We still have a ways to go in the story, but the connections and
thoughts that the kids have pertaining to the book are amazing!
The One and Only Ivan read aloud
Our adjectives window (the view is much more clear from the classroom)!
The One and Only Ivan read aloud
Our published pieces have received a lot of good reviews from our fellow Wildcats! We would love for you to come take a read!
Social Studies
When we returned to school on Tuesday, the school watched a
video entitled “My Friend Martin”! The video was an animation based on the life
and works of Martin Luther King Jr. The kids were able to see Martin as a
child, teenager, and an adult. They were also able to get a glimpse of what
things could be like had Martin not did what he did for our country. The video
touched a lot of the kids; we even had a few cry! The Kids had so many
questions around why there weren’t equal rights for everyone and why people
hated others because of the color of their skin. I hope that as a family you
all can continue our discussion.
in our culture unit. We read Three
American Heroes and with it we compared Cesar Chavez, Jane Adams, and
Martin Luther King Jr. We also created a “What We Think We Know” chart on the
many cultures of America. I was amazed and surprised by some of the things the
kids thought they knew about these cultures. We will return to this chart at
the end of our culture unit to see if what we thought we knew was correct and
where some of our misconceptions may have come from.
What we think we know about African Americans, Asian Americans, Indian American, White Americans, Native Americans, and Spanish Americans!
Comparing and contrasting Jane Adams, Martin Luther King Jr., and Cesar Chavez.
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