Mayberry-McFarland Weekly News

for the week of September 25, 2017

Due Dates / Upcoming Events:

Monday, October 2: reading logs due

Tuesday, October 3: Home Link due / McFarlands have P.E. (wear sneakers) / Picture Day: send in form on or before that day (forms went home with students Thursday) / first Adventure-Based Learning session!

Wednesday, October 4: full day

Thursday, October 5: be caught up on math journal pages

Friday, October 6: Teacher Inservice Day: no school for students

Monday, October 9: Columbus Day: no school

Tuesday, October 10: reading logs due

General News and Announcements

Adventure-Based Learning (ABL)

This coming Tuesday is our first ABL session!  It’s an active, challenging program that will guide your child to make growth in leadership, listening, compromising, and persevering through frustrations.

• designed to support students in creating a sense of community and teamwork in order to meet physical, social, emotional challenges
• develop skills such as compromise, listening, risk-taking, sharing, leadership
• twelve sessions, including a winter Iditarod simulation and an outside culminating event in May
• Teachers work to embed concepts into the classroom experience.
• 21st Century Learning: Teachers integrate essential skills (communication, creativity & innovation, critical thinking/problem solving, citizenship)

Tardiness

If you drop off your child at school after 8:35, s/he is considered tardy.  Please come into school with your child and sign her/him in.  Otherwise, it’s considered an “unexcused” tardy.  I’ve had a few students coming to the classroom with passes that say “unexcused.”

Looking for: yarn!

If you have yarn just taking up space and would like donate some to our classroom we will gladly take it off your hands.

SpellingCity

We have received one donation to help us fund SpellingCity for both classes -- thank you!  If you’d care to donate, we’d be happy to put your money toward the cause.  https://www.spellingcity.com/

Academic Updates:

Writing Workshop

This week, students determined the messages for several stories (Owl Moon, Come On, Rain!, and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day).  We differentiated between a “lesson” and the author’s message.  The message is what the author is really trying to show us.  So instead of giving us advice to improve our lives (a lesson), the author of Come On, Rain! is trying to show us that Tessie really wanted it to rain and that she was so happy when it finally did.  That’s it.  Then, we studied the text in Come On, Rain! and underlined specific words and phrases that showed the message.  The point is that writers use words deliberately to share a message.  

    The kids also chose a small moment idea about which to focus their narrative, which we will plan, draft, revise, and edit over the next few weeks.  This is a piece that I’ll score.  I’ll share the scoring rubric with the class to help them understand the goals of the unit, and I’ll design lessons to help them meet those goals.

Reading Workshop

We are paying very close attention to characters’ actions to determine their traits.  We are also paying close attention to how characters react to obstacles and then pushing ourselves to think, “What does this tell me about the character?”  A major understanding I want students to realize and to own is that reading is much, much more than following the plot.  There are so many opportunities to learn and grow when we read.  I want to make sure that each child is no longer satisfied with simply letting the plot wash over them, clap the dust off the hands, and that’s the end of the experience.  As we practice these strategies to deepen our thinking, your child will likely also deepen her/his joy of reading.

    

Math

This week our mathematicians learned how to draw, label and correctly name geometric figures. They also learned to differentiate between parallel, perpendicular and intersecting lines. In addition students continue to work on skills related to place value and problem solving.

Theme

This week students explored and discovered the two different types of volcanoes, shield and cone. Below are a few photos of students working with two types of simulated lava as they work to discover which type of lava produces which type of volcano.