McFarland-Mayberry-Begley Bulletin
For the week of May 2, 2016
Thank you all very much for your generous tokens of appreciation and thoughtful, kind words this past week! PTO, parents, and students do a wonderful job in remembering all of the school staff, and I can honestly say that the energy around the building this week has been joyful -- smiles everywhere! Thank you!
Due Dates / Upcoming Events:
Monday, May 9th - Weekly reading logs due / 4-5 STEM Night 5:30-7pm
Tuesday, May 10th - Home link due
Wednesday, May 11th - Early Release
Thursday, May 12th - Spelling due
Friday, May 13th - Home link due / Mousetrap Presentations / Strawbery Banke $ due
Notices for Strawbery Banke went home this week. Money is due next Friday ($10). If you are interested in chaperoning, please fill out the form that was sent home TODAY (note the change in cost details for chap’s on today’s notice) and return with an additional $8 for your admission.
- May 9th - STEM night (5:30-7:00pm)
The STEM Night Committee still needs more items for Monday’s event. We are looking for: empty boxes, pizza boxes, egg cartons, empty & clean plastic containers, as well as toilet paper and paper towel tubes. If you are able to help, please send these items to school Monday. Thanks!
- May 18th - Poetry Jam (5:30pm)
- May 23rd - 4th Grade Musical (have your child here at 5:50)
- June 2nd - ABL Celebration Day (outside: sneakers, water, sunscreen)
- June 7th - 4th Grade Field Trip to Strawbery Banke
- June 17th - Last Day of School
Academic Updates:
Reading Workshop
This week was a continuation in re-establishing workshop habits in the classroom, with many readers choosing books from our stacks of NEW books!
Also, I have started assessing readers with the Teachers College Reading Assessments. These assessments are the ones that help me identify a Guided Reading Level (GRL) for each child. The assessments focus on accuracy, fluency, retelling, and answering literal and inferential questions about a short realistic fiction passage. If one wanted to help a child with any of these skills, one’s teacher might recommend that the child read aloud a few times per week to one’s parent for a half-page or so. The parent might provide a compliment regarding what the child is doing well: paying attention to punctuation, using expression when reading dialogue, self-correcting when noticing an error, etc. Something that would be very helpful would be to encourage a reader to notice when reading inaccurately and to encourage the reader to take the time to fix errors in order to read accurately. Little things like word substitutions, changing suffixes, and omitting small words have an impact on accuracy, and research shows that eventually those kinds of errors have an impact on comprehension. In terms of comprehension through retelling, kids are asked to:
- Talk about characters by name
- Tell about major events in order
- Tell how characters felt
- Tell why characters act the way they do
Writing Workshop
“Poetry: Yay or nay?” That has been the question of the week! Right now, our focus is to understand what makes a strong poem. That means we are studying the Poetry Writing Checklist, and we are reading some GOOD poetry! Ask your child about Don Graves’ poem, “Summer Squash.” Ask your child what s/he noticed about Judith Viorst’s poem, “If I Were In Charge of the World.” And, if you talk about nothing else school-related this weekend, ask your child about Rock’n’Roll Friday! This week's feature song: “Cat’s in the Cradle” -- yup, that one…
Math
Students continued their work with fractions this week, learning to multiply a whole number by a mixed number and applying these skills to challenging word problems. In addition, they reviewed long division with a very demanding set of story problems.
Please take a few minutes to review basic multiplication facts with your child, even if you think your child has mastered them. I have begun to notice some slipping of fact fluency over the last few weeks. Thanks!
Spelling
This week students took part in a word building activity focusing on adding suffixes to base words. We also reviewed the long vowel sounds that y makes when it comes at the end of a word.
Theme
This week teams finished their mousetraps and advertising. Students learned about the components of an effective presentation and worked with their team to write and practice their presentations. Next Friday, students will present to Mr. Von, who will provide them with feedback on their designs.
We also started our human body unit. Students observed bodies in motion and answered questions designed to elicit their prior knowledge about the skeletal system. We read Bones: Skeletons and How They Work by Steve Jenkins. Next week we will participate in several labs to learn about the skeletal system.
No comments:
Post a Comment