Update

Hello All!  We have either begun or are beginning all new units next week.

In reading, our focus is on characters in our stories.  We will be going really deep as we explore characters in our book asking why they do certain things and why they make certain choices.  We are reading Winn Dixie, whole class, and using it as our mentor text.

In writing, we will begin our informative writing on Monday.  Each student will choose a topic to research, I'm ruling out all video game and video game related topics, as well as .  I'd rather they focus on social or science topics, since it's difficult for me to hit on these topics at length as much as I'd like to.  They will use chrome books to and google classroom to research and write their papers.

In math, we have begun multiplication.  Some kids are off and running others are still trying to wrap their brains around it.  We just had our second lesson today so I'm not concerned.  They will have lots of opportunities to cement the concept this year.

In social studies, I continue to focus on friendship and bullying topics.  The kids wrote and performed skits about bullying and how to respond to bullies one day this week.  We pointed out the positive things we saw kids doing and suggested other strategies to try as well.  They seemed to enjoy this activity.  I hope it will help them feel more confident should any of these scenarios really happen but also be more aware of what each child can do as a witness to hurtful behaviors and/or words.

We're are still working on our auction art pieces.

I need some classroom volunteers to help me monitor research, progression of work, etc during our new writing unit the next couple weeks.  Any takers?  I've reserved the computers M-Th in the afternoons.  I usually do writing last thing of the day, from 1:50-ish to 2:45-ish.  Writing is difficult for a lot of people and I don't want to make it miserable but if they're working well and on task I don't want to interrupt either.  I let the kids moods/behaviors dictate  the length of writing.  If they're 'done' by 2:30, we do a community circle and/or a read aloud instead.  We will work until at least 2:30 each day.

Email me if you're available.
Kyla