Hi,
Your children are wonderful! We are working so hard to finish our essay writing. The format of this genre has been a little challenging for some. They created thesis statements and reasons to support that thesis. Then wrote small moment stories as examples of each reason. The idea that those three small moment stories are put together into a five part essay (introduction, reason 1 with story, reason 2 with story, and reason three with story, conclusion) was a bit challenging but they are getting it. I was hoping to have these essays complete for the children to read at our Author's Celebration on Monday afternoon. Some got very close but we ran out of time to work on them on Monday due to our pen pal trip. We will continue to revise and edit our essays and will have them done by the end of the week. They are really coming along nicely.
Lots of compliments were given today during our Pen Pal trip. We unexpectedly heard a choir concert which was a bit longer than we thought it might be. It was very good but a little long. The kids sat quietly and respectfully for the entire concert. Then we played a present passing game. Everyone has a wrapped present. I read a story and whenever they heard the word "right" they passed their present to the right. If they heard "left" they passed it to the left. This continues for quite a while and then they get to open the present in the end! We will be doing this game at our holiday party but with a different story. We then read aloud our pen pal book using the microphone. Every child read the page that they wrote. The pen pals enjoyed hearing what was important about each of them. Next we interviewed them a little about holidays and played with tree and candy cane bubble necklaces. Bubbles were very fun for all. We will be doing more bubbles in the future. It was a great visit. Our next visit is on Friday, January 14. The pen pals will be coming to our school.
Author's Celebration
Thank you to the parents who were able to come to our Author's Celebration today. We heard some wonderful stories. The children reread their published writing from this year and chose one to read aloud. The others offered compliments to the author. Our writing is getting longer and we had lots of great comments so we ran out of time and had to go home. Those who didn't get to read today will read tomorrow.
Reading
We are continuing to work on comprehension skills using social studies material. We are using graphic organizers to help us focus our learning, ask questions, and monitor our comprehension as we read.
Writing
Awesome work on essays. We will be finishing our editing and revising this week.
Math
Fractions will be our focus this week. We will continue to work on fractions, multiplication, and division in problem solving when we return in January.
Social Studies
We are continuing to learn about Texas History. We learned about missions and early towns. We will be learning more about Stephen F. Austin and the Old Three Hundred this week. We will be learning about the Texas Revolution when we return.
Science
We are beginning to plan for our science fair projects. Your child will bring home a paper on Tuesday that needs to be filled out and returned on Thursday, Dec. 16. We will be talking about this more in class but the science project will be done at home. Here is a great website to find possible experiments. http://www.sciencebuddies.org/
Dates to remember:
Yearbook Orders due on December 15
Science Project Idea Paper due on December 16
Holiday Party-December 17 at 1:45
January 4-Return to class
January 28-Marathon Kids forms due
Have a wonderful holiday, if I don't get to see you. Thank you for sharing your children with me. Let me know if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
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