December 18, 2015

Thank you to everyone who came to the Christmas concert last Sunday! All of the children performed beautifully.

Above, you can see photos from one of the final activities we did with this science unit on how the Earth is shaped. Students pretended to dig up fossils, and had to figure out how the pieces of the skeleton fit together and what animal it made. Though a few of them guessed it was a mammoth early on, they were all surprised at the end to see how it fit together! The activity was based on mammoth fossils that were actually found in Illinois, which led to a conversation about how Illinois used to be covered in ice. Don't forget, we have our test in science tomorrow.

I also wanted to share our finished Jesse Tree. I've been really impressed this year with how well the students summarized the Bible stories and the beautiful symbols they've drawn.

Students will receive work for over Christmas break tomorrow. This will consist of some math pages in their workbook that serve as a mid-year review, and to read a book and write a review about it persuading someone else to read it. The persuasive review can either be done on Kidblog or handed in on a sheet of paper.

Looking ahead to January, we'll be reading historical fiction books, studying fractions, measuring and describing matter, learning about the Northeast and learning even more about some of the Old Testament figures from the Jesse Tree! Before that, I hope everyone has a joyful and blessed Christmas.

December 9, 2015

I hope everyone is ready for the Christmas concert! Just as a reminder, it is this Sunday at 4:30. Students should be there by 4:15. They can leave their coats with you and then meet me at the front of the church. We will be sitting on the right hand side if you're facing the altar. Students should be practicing their songs at home, too. If they're not sure how to sing one of them, Ms. Fox has put recordings of all the songs on her music blog.

We have several tests that are coming up next week. In math, we will have a test on using tables and graphs on Tuesday. In science, we'll have a test on how the earth changes on Friday. That study guide will be sent home at the end of the week. As always, please remember that your child can show me their study guide early if you would like me to check it over to make sure it is correct. We will not have a spelling or times tables test next week.

In reading class, we just finished reading The Bad Beginning. We're going to spend the next few weeks talking about non-fiction books and how text features such as captions and maps can help us understand the text. We are continuing to use persuasive writing in writing class, with students writing letters to Santa from a villain, trying to convince Santa that they actually belong on the nice list! The students have been very creative with their reasoning, and I'm happy to see the strong topic sentences and organization they have in their letters. Students have been completing an inquiry project in social studies, where they use various online sources to research a question they have about the government. I created a Padlet wall of good non-fiction sources online. You can find it here.

During Advent, we complete one of my favorite activities: the Jesse Tree. Each student was assigned a person from Jesus' family tree to present to the class. We've been listening to one-two of those presentations each day and adding the symbols to our tree. There's also a great book we've been reading out loud to go along with this! There will be a quiz on the last day of school, where students need to fill in at least 10 names to the Jesse Tree story. We review the ones we've already covered every day, so as long as the students pay attention, they should have no problem with this. Many of the students in previous years have been able to fill in all 24 names!