Hi,
It is hard to believe that it is already December! This year is flying by. I challenged your children with reading more difficult books for book club groups and completing the books in a week. They were required to write thoughtful responses as well which included a summary of the chapters read, and their thinking. (predictions, connections, questions, and thoughts and feelings) They also wrote about a character and the settings. I was soooooo impressed! Your children are writing thoughtful, honest responses and it was evident how engaged most of them were with their books. We will be starting new book club books next week and will finish the books before the holiday break. I can't wait to read their responses to some fantasy books!
Texas I-CAN! (Initiatives for Children's Activity and Nutrition) study-A doctoral student from my husband's lab at University of Texas is conducting a study to examine the improvements in classroom behavior from academic lessons that incorporate physical activity. We are so excited that part of the study will be conducted with 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade students from our school. Please read over the packet that was in the Thursday folders yesterday and let us know if you have any questions or concerns. If you will allow your child to participate, sign the back page of the packet and return it to school. Thank you for your support!
Reading: This week in reading, we worked on using fact/question/response charts as we read a story about slavery called Come Fly with Me. We also used an article about the beginning of the revolutionary war to take notes and keep tracks of our thinking on the article. Next week we will read more about the Revolutionary War and made a chart of Important Facts/Interesting Details/My Thinking. Then we will practice using the chart as we read about Texas Missions.
Writing: We read our personal narratives and wrote comments for each other. We are gathering entries for essay writing. We are noticing and observing and writing about them then stretching our thinking to write about what this observation made us realize. This will lead to big ideas that we will use for a thesis statement and then we will write paragraphs to support our thesis. It has been exciting to hear about their in depth observations and their big ideas! We are planning to have a class Author's Celebration on Monday, December 13 from 2:00-2:40. We will be reading some of our writing. You are invited to join us and help us to celebrate all of our hard work as writers this year.
Math: Division! Division with remainders! What do we do with the remainders????? This has been our focus this week. The kids are doing a great job using different strategies to solve division problems and then to think about the question in the problem to figure out what to do with the remainders. If the question is asking about how many vans they will need if there are 44 people and 8 people per van, then they have to be sure that everyone has a ride, so they will need to have 6 vans. But the actual answer would be 5 remainder 4. If the question is asking how much money each person would get if they had $44 and there were 8 people, then they would each get $4.50. It has been tricky for some but they are getting it. We will be starting fractions next week.
Social Studies: We have been learning about explorers in Texas. They have been working on biographical paper plate projects, charts, journals, and maps. They have been reading from multiple sources. We will be finishing explorers up and begin learning about missions next week.
Dates to remember:
December 6-10-Holiday Stacking Contest-Send in your magazines and catalogs
Return the Texas I-CAN forms
December 7-Senior Choir Tour
December 8-Early Release 12:45
December 9-Literacy Night-5pm-7pm
Monday, December 13-Pen Pal trip to The Court-9:30-11:15
Author's Celebration- 2:00-2:45pm
Friday, December 17-Holiday Party 2:00-2:45pm
Winter Holiday-December 18-January 4, 2011
Thank you for sharing your child with me. Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
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