Wait a Minute… Did the entire month of November fly by, or is it just me? December is here! I can’t believe it! I am new to this school, so I guess I just am not used to the time warp phenomenon present in AISD! November was full of amazing activities: Thanksgiving, UN Day, Character Dress-up day, and Literacy Night! What fun!
Reading- We are now Literature Circle Pros! Over the past several weeks, students have learned about each Literature Circle job: Story Summarizer, Word Watcher, Bridge Builder, Imaginative Illustrator, and Question Creator! Ask your child to tell you about it (if they haven’t already!). In each of the four groups, students have been really showing their learner profile skills as communicators and reflective learners! It has been amazing to watch each student perform the duties as the Circle Supervisor and lead their groups successfully in daily book talks. Ask your child if they have been chosen as the ‘Circle Star’ of the day!
Writing- More than half of the class is hard at work on the ‘professional’ publishing their first writing piece. Though they have tens of stories lurking in their writing folders, only some special stories have the opportunity to make it through the full writing process! One trait of writing we have been focusing on this month is Voice. Ask your child to talk to you about the difference between the ‘outside’ story and the ‘inside’ story, which adds voice to their writing. You will be surprised about what you find out!
Spelling – Students continue to use (Structured Word Inquiry) SWI to better understand how the spelling of base words can be affected by adding a prefix and/or suffix. We have been examining syllables of words to see how a word can be broken down into parts. Students are on a vowel hunt, hoping to find at least one vowel per syllable! Will they find a word that breaks the rule? What patterns can they find in different plural nouns with respect to syllables? December will be full of spelling discoveries!
Math- We are happy to be wrapping up our Geometry unit with some reflection… well, some symmetrical reflections! We have had so much fun making mirror-pattern block shapes, symmetrical geo-block cities, colored tile symmetry with partners, and we have even decorated the class using cleverly created symmetrical shapes!
Unit-
Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed in November by your child in order to help us research how different cities change over time. Your expertise translated into a wonderful poster-museum where each student shared what they learned about their parents’ native country.
Thank you for taking the time to be interviewed in November by your child in order to help us research how different cities change over time. Your expertise translated into a wonderful poster-museum where each student shared what they learned about their parents’ native country.
This month, we will start a new unit regarding the sustainability of these changing cities. The following words will be household jargon by the end of our unit:
responsibility connection
resources consumers
sustainability recycle
reuse reduce
renewable oil
fossil fuels carbon dioxide
climate change organic
carbon footprint vegan
free range pollution
vegetarian population
environment contamination
purify
energy