Sept. 22-29th Weekly Update

Here is the news from the week:

Science:
We wrapped up our Sprout Kid observation with thoughtful discussion about the causes for our results.  How in the world was the grass able to grow with no sunlight?  Why was the grass different shades of green?  After a fantastic whole-group discussion, we used what we had learned about photosynthesis and chlorophyll to answer those questions.  We continued to learn more about plants this week, including the topics of seedless and seed plants and plant life cycles.  Next week we will review what we have discovered about plants and take our first science assessment!  The assessment will be a written assessment, with two versions based upon student need and expectations. 

Writing:
Our Writer's Workshop has taken flight!  Wahoo!  We began our first unit, personal narratives.  Most of our focus lessons revolved around picking a topic, making sure we knew enough to write about a topic and figuring our what details we could add to make our writing POP!  Next week we will continue to work on our narratives with focus lessons based upon revising our pieces.  Writer's Workshop takes place mostly on the computers or Chromebooks.  Using their Google Drive, they are able to "share" their writing piece with Mrs. Ebert and Mrs. Petersen with the click of a button!

Reading:
Book Club reports were a huge part of our Reader's Workshop this week.  Most of the groups completed and presented their report on Friday.  In addition to the students who presented their book club book, there were several students who used a graphic organizer to map out the character, plot and setting of a shorter text.  
Next week we will begin our full fledged Reading Workshop.  In this setting, we will have a whole-group focus lesson followed by students working in two 25 minute stations with a snack break & mini lesson between the stations. The stations will include: Teacher/Book Club and Independent Reading.  When students are in the independent station they are reading a book of their choice, quietly.  When they have finished they document their reading in a reading log.  If a student is meeting in a book club they are reading a book with other students at a similar reading level.  The students will set their own pacing and will use their time to read and discuss the literature using a teacher selected prompt.  If a student is not meeting with a book club they will be meeting with Mrs. Ebert or Mrs. Petersen for small groups lesson.

Math:
Third grade focused on multiplying and division this week, fourth grade continued to focus on subtracting greater numbers and fifth grade continued to practice adding and subtracting mixed numbers with unlike denominators.  Students spent their independent station working on either their interactive notebooks (used for reference in the future) or on task cards.  During their technology station students created accounts for Khanacademy.org  and spent time in Dreambox.  
If your child wants to use Khan Academy at home they are more than welcome to do so!  Please remind them that their username is their entire email address  _______@student.kewaskumschools.org and their password is whatever they use to log into the Chromebooks.  

That is the news of the week!  

Thank you for taking the time to visit our blog and learn more about our learning environment!