Happy Friday Weckie Parents!!
Thank you for taking the time to read this News Blog as I have a lot of important updates in here about our current learning, future learning and classroom needs! We are really picking up steam and speed as we move into this third and final trimester and are literally beginning to plan out our learning to the end of the year. Wow! What a year it has been!
A couple of reminders first:
- Please make sure your child's device is in working order and that they have a pair of working headphones. I began the year in November with about 40 new pairs of headphones and I now have ZERO pairs of headphones... So, we need help there! Please make sure your child has one pair that does actually work. Have them check at home and show you that they can hear sound. Daily we go onto iReady lessons as a part of WL's curriculum and your child needs their laptop AND working headphones. With MSTEP starting next week in third, fourth and fifth grades, we will no longer be able to borrow a device from the office as many of our kids are doing. Please reach out to Tech Dept at the ESC if you need a Chromebook to rent for free. Additionally it would be REALLY helpful if devices were charged nightly. Several kids are reporting dead laptops each day when we jump onto iReady. With a packed schedule we are only on the computer 20-30 minutes max and at times, waiting for them to charge can consume their lesson time.
- Outdoor recess is happening daily this year - even when it's a little wet out there (unless it's really bad)! We are really trying to get the kids fresh air and time, when distanced, to take off their masks. Please make sure to pack your child a coat or appropriate weather attire. It has been cold this second half of the week and many of our kids are without coats.
- All students in our room prior to the pathway change in March were given a colored book bag with books. I need these returned in a timely manner. Book bags come home every other Friday and need to be returned a week later so that they can sit a week before coming home with new books. I have many kids who have not returned their colored book bags in weeks or months. Our new friends will also be bringing home book bags starting next Friday with just-right books to read at home as well.
- Market Day is April 23!! We are planning to do our Market Day on the afternoon of April 23rd. If you were unable to send in your child's 10 items today, please have them in no later than Monday! They should be fine to sit in quarantine for 5 days. Each child will need to bring $2 with them in CHANGE (no pennies please) so that we can practice making change as we sell our items!
- Water Bottles: All of the drinking fountains remain covered at school. It is super important that your child brings a water bottle to school daily as only the bottle refill stations are open and the office is not providing bottles of water to students who are without. For awhile I had extra bottles in the room that I could give out, but we have depleted my source (I think they caught on that water from Mrs. Weckstein came from my fridge and was cold).
Phonics Workshop
In Phonics Workshop we have been working on some tricky letters and their sounds We have taken time to look at the soft and hard 'g' and the soft and hard 'c'. Check the poster below to see some of the hard and soft 'G' sounds we have worked with this week!
Then we have been working with what we call "camouflage" letters! These are letters that are paired up with another letter but sound silent. Think of the 'g' in the word "gnome" or the 'k' in the word "knuckles". We have worked on noticing that the silent 'e' after 'g' is also one of those camouflaged letters! To celebrate our fun with camouflaged letters, we have decided to ALL wear camo to school on Friday, April 23rd if you have some!
Readers' Workshop
In Readers' Workshop we have been wrapping up our unit on Series Books. We have spent a ton of time learning about different series books including: Yasmin, Alexander books, Pinky and Rex, Otis books and MORE! We have spent time talking about how:
- Author's plan their story endings
- What to do when you love a book series and can't keep it to yourself
- What makes a series good, better or the best?
- How to share a series book with a friend
- How to share your opinion about a book
- How to debate about a book or book character
This week we gave out awards to our favorite book series and recorded videos on FlipGrid with our three reasons and WHY we picked our book series to be our favorite. Each child then had time to watch their classmate's videos and leave compliments and comments. Please check them out! Click the link provided here and when asked to login, type in your child's last name, with a capital letter. If you are unable to login, ask your Weckie for help, they are pros! https://flipgrid.com/3288ae51 You can even leave comments if you'd like from their account.
Writers' Workshop
In Writers' Workshop we have been working our way to the conclusion of our Opinion Writing Unit. We have been giving out book awards these last two weeks to different books for different things! Awards I have seen given out have included: Best Graphic Novel, Best Friend Characters, Funniest Book, Best Illustrations, Book with the Most Facts, Best Book about Sharks and more! We have talked about how you could nominate a book for an award and how you would write your opinion up of why the book is deserving of this award. We have learned how to add quotes from the story to support our opinion and we have also made plans for the very best way to share our books! This week we took a look back at our Opinion Writing and used a checklist to help us make it stronger and make sure we were including all of the important parts of an opinion piece. Punctuation and spelling have also been a topic of focus.
Math Workshop
In Math Workshop these past two weeks we have been learning all sorts of new things when working with addition. I have attached a picture here of the anchor chart we refer to so that we keep things straight. Learning to write base-10 blocks shorthand, learning to write expanded notation, learning to do ballpark estimates and solving double digit addition with partial sums are ALL topics we have really been working a lot with in Workshop. Please continue to practice these skills at home with your child! We have completed Unit 6 and will take our Unit 6 Assessment on Monday. Please send your completed Unit 6 Homelink packets back!
Homelinks for Unit 7 will come home on Monday and the planned lessons are:
Tuesday, April 20: Lesson 7.1
Wednesday, April 21: Lesson 7.2
Thursday, April 22: Lesson 7.3
Tuesday, April 27: Lesson 7.4
Wednesday, April 28: Lesson 7.5
Thursday, April 29: Lesson 7.6
If you can try to stay on pace with the instruction at school, that will help your child to review those concepts at home with adult help where needed. Please be sure to read the directions as so much of this math is being solved differently than we were ever taught!
