HAPPY NEW YEAR!

McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin

for the week of January 4th

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, January 11th- Reading logs due

Tuesday, January 12th - Home link due

Wednesday, January 13th - Math box catch up night

Thursday, January 14th -  Spelling due

Friday, January 15th - Home link due

Monday, January 18th - No School

Wednesday, January 20th - Full Day Wednesday

Welcome Assembly for Japanese Exchange Students

On Wednesday our students attended the welcome ceremony for the Japanese exchange students who are visiting Greely Middle School this week.  We followed this up with a presentation and question-and-answer session in Mrs. Groom’s class on Friday.  The kids were really excited about the opportunity and asked lots of good questions.

Adventure-Based Learning

When is a jumprope a gateway to get out of Jurassic Park?  When it’s ABL day!  Ask your child to tell you about the challenges of getting out with a partner, with a focus group of 6 to 8 kids, and then with two combined focus groups!

serious business!

feet ready for a closing game

Academic Updates:

Reading Workshop

When students arrived on Monday, there were eight new baskets of nonfiction books on our shelves!  Most of the books focus on animals and things about animals, such as migration, life cycles, and adaptations.  It was great to see renewed enthusiasm about nonfiction texts.  We are continuing to work on strategies for identifying main idea.  Mrs. Mayberry made us some Main Idea Task Cards, 32 cards that each have a very short article.  The cards are numbered, and students have a numbered sheet on which to record the main idea of their articles of choice.  We are getting picky about what a main idea is and isn’t (see photo).  Next week, we will work to identify the main idea of some short National Geographic videos.  This will surely contribute to more succinct answers when you ask your child, “What’s that show about?”

Writing Workshop

On Monday, we turned an important corner in our informational texts: we used stapled paper and Post-its to make draft booklets, and we planned the layout of our books.  That makes it seem real, and kids can start to see the big picture of this project!  We used the Whole Brain Teaching technique of writing Genius Paragraphs (thank you, Pinterest!).  I wanted a new way to help kids write engaging, informative paragraphs with correct grammatical structure, something I noticed that was a little sketchy in our essay unit.  Each child has written three paragraphs using this technique.  We also started our conclusion paragraphs.  Students are able to see the commonalities of different genres, as narratives, essays, and informational texts all need a purposeful ending, among other parts (such as transitions and leads).  Next week, we will host Mrs Greenlaw’s 6th graders to help us edit for spelling!

Math

In math this week we continued to work with reading and converting decimals and fractions to the hundredths place. Students also had an introduction to measuring precisely using centimeters and millimeters. I must say I have many students who are really executing precise measurements all the way down to the nearest millimeter!

Spelling

This week students reviewed silent letters and homophones.  I shared two read alouds, Silent Letters Loud and Clear and How Much Could a Bare Bear Bear?  Students also practiced these concepts with some guided practice in class.

Theme

This week we started our unit on magnets and electricity.  Monday we elicited prior knowledge in our notebooks.  After sharing ideas about magnets with the class, students were given a magnet to explore.  Students recorded observations in their notebooks.  We followed this up with two labs: Will it Stick? and The Force.  Will it Stick? allowed students to explore the kinds of items that magnets stick to.  The Force helped students explore how the greater the distance between two magnets, the weaker the magnetic force.  We also explored ways that magnets are used in everyday life.