Last Day of School

As I sit here preparing the gifts for my kiddos, I can't help but reflect on our year together. What an amazing year!! I absolutely cannot believe it is coming to an end. I don't know about you, but this has been the quickest year I've experienced. And that makes me sad. I have truly enjoyed ALL the times our Crew has had together this year. From ghost towns to town celebrations. From howling wolves to creating websites and launching rockets. And all the small moments in between. Each memory brings a smile to my face.

My biggest, heartfelt thanks to you, for sharing your wonderful children with me this year. Thank you for trusting me to be just a step in their learning journey. I have learned so much from them this year too.

I hope you all have a wonderful, safe, restful summer! I can't wait to see everyone next year, as great big 3rd graders!

Tuesday, May 21st, 2013

So sorry this is a day late.

This week's IA: PE
Next week's IA: Art
Following week's IA: Music (This is our last week of school.)

*Homework:
Hopefully you all saw the packet come home with your child yesterday. I sent home a packet with each child's name on it. Your child should write kind adjectives, phrases, or memories about each child in our Crew. I will then use these words to create an end-of-the-year gift for each student. In order for me to get all 25 of the gifts done, it is very important that I get these back no later than this Friday, May 24th. Please help your child remember to return it by then. Thanks so much for your help with this!

*Crew Breakfast and Portfolio Share:
Thank you, Jennifer for sending out the Signup Genius for our end-of-the-year breakfast. This will be on Tuesday, June 4th, from 9:00-10:00. This will also be the time that students will share their portfolios with parents. Please plan on attending. If you are not able to attend, please let me know. I know each child would love to have a parent here to share with.

*Expedition:
Our Crew will be creating a website to share with the world :) about wolves. Last week, Ms. Cari, Keanan's mom came in and taught us how to design and create a website. We are so excited to create this final produce for our Science Expedition. Be on the lookout for the link to our finished product.

 *Conflict Resolution
As we draw near to the end of the school year, tensions seem to run a bit high. We've been experiencing some conflicts in our Crew, so yesterday we did a restorative circle to help us learn how to deal with these conflicts when they arise. Each child had a chance to say what he or she thought about how to handle problems. Below is the chart we all created to help remind us what we agreed to. I was amazed by their deep thinking and creative problem solving techniques!

Monday, May 13th, 2013

I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day yesterday! I enjoyed a relaxing day with my family.

This week's IA: Music
Next week's IA: PE

Reader's Workshop
We are reading fairy tales. As we read, we're discussing the lesson that the fairy tale is teaching. We're also talking about characters and perspective. For example, since we're learning about wolves in expedition, we are examining how wolves are portrayed in fairy tales. This has been a great way in to talk about point of view and perspective.

Also, we are learning some great vocabulary words. Some students are even transferring the new vocabulary to other parts of the day. Last week, one student used the famine (a vocabulary word from reading) to describe what could happen to wolves if we destroy their habitat! I love when kids make those connections! Hopefully you're hearing your child use some of these new words in their conversations with you.

Writer's Workshop
One thing that we're working on in writing is third-person perspective when writing factual descriptions. This has been a challenge because most of us are used to using the words I, me, my, we, our, etc. in our writing. You will have a chance to see our factual descriptions about wolves very soon.

Math
We are almost done with our current unit. Later this week we'll begin the unit where we review addition and subtraction and learn more about multiplication and division. It would be a huge help for students to practice their addition and subtraction facts at home, as there isn't much time in class for this practice. As the concepts in math become more challenging, knowledge of these basic facts is vital.

Expedition
This week we will begin creating our class website about wolves. We will use this website as a way to educate the community about wolves and why we should care if they are endangered. We'll even have a guest speaker teach us about creating a website.

Monday, April 29, 2013

I hope you all enjoyed the beautiful weather this weekend! 

This week's IA: PE

Next week's IA: Art

Reader's Workshop

Since we are learning about wolves in Expedition, we are going to tie in reading with this. We will begin our Fairy Tale study this week. Our main focus will be on characters, and specifically, how wolves are portrayed in these stories. We'll compare and contrast these characters with facts we learn in Expedition.

Writer's Workshop

You will begin to see your child's writing coming home in a purple folder. Please take a look at it, and put it back in the folder to return to school the next day. The writing pieces will then be placed in your child's portfolio. Thanks for helping your child make sure his or her writing comes back to school, in the purple folder, the next day.

Math

We are continuing to get more experience with money. Today, we learned how to compare costs of items. The word we paid attention to was "difference." This clued us in to know that we need to subtract when we are comparing costs. 

Expedition

What a wonderful day of fieldwork we had last Thursday!! The Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center was amazing. We learned so much about wolves, from adaptations they have to how they interact with their habitat. We also learned why we should care if they are endangered. Before we left, we got to interact with the wolves by communicating with them through howling. Such a cool experience! 

Monday, April 22, 2013

And yet another snowy afternoon out the window as I type this. I wonder when it will ever be sunny again???

This week's IA: Music
Next week's IA: PE

*Our field work to the Colorado Wolf and Wildlife Center is this Thursday, April 25th. Students will need their day packs packed with two snacks, a lunch. I will go over the other supplies they need to have packed with them.

Reader's Workshop
We are integrating our expedition with Reader's Workshop. For read alouds, we are reading books that teach us about animal adaptations. While we listen to and read these texts, we are working on determining the important information and summarzing what we learn.

Writer's Workshop
Our writing has improved so much! We are all being more aware of the mistakes we make when we write and fixing those mistakes on the run. We're also choosing some very descriptive words to describe our topics to our readers.

Math
Our next unit, that we will begin on Tuesday, is all about place value and decimal points. We will also spend some more time working with money.

Expedition
Our new case study is well under way. We have spent time reading texts about wolves, becoming experts, teaching others what we know, and learning more from expert speakers. Last week, we had two officers from the Division of Parks Wildlife teach us about wolf adaptations, Thursday at our field work.

Monday, April 15th, 2013

Yet another snowy April day. While I sure appreciate the moisture, I sure would like for our nice Spring Colorado weather to show up and stay awhile.

This week's IA: Art
Next week's IA: Music

Reader's Workshop
Last Friday, I attended another workshop to learn some more strategies for teaching reading. I am very excited about what I learned and can't wait to implement the changes. I will attend the final training this coming Friday. Once I implement the new resources, I'll share more about just what your children will be learning as readers.

Writer's Workshop
The students have really taken to our new approach to Writer's Workshop. They are producing a lot of quality writing. Some of the learning targets we have been focusing on are writing complete sentences (all the time!), naming the topic in our first sentence, using specific adjectives, and varying our sentence beginnings. Their first published pieces of writing will be coming home soon. I just ask that once the writing does come home, please send it back to school so that I may put it in your child's portfolio.

Math
Currently, we are learning about perimeter, area, and capacity, as well as other measurements. I will be talking with the students in class a lot about these words so that they hear and use them frequently, but it would be great if you could talk about these concepts at home too, to really solidify them. Maybe share a time you had to use perimeter, area, or capacity in your home or work. It would be great to hear some of these stories from the students during Morning Meeting.

Expedition
Wow! The kids are so excited for our new case study!! Last week, we revealed that we will be studying wolves. I will explain, in more detail, at a later date just why we are learning about wolves. Thank you to everyone who volunteered to drive for our Field work in a couple of weeks. I will email all of you to confirm. Here are some pictures of the kids taking a more in-depth look at wolf artifacts to build their background and spark their curiosity.

Wednesday, April 10th, 2013

Welcome back!

I hope you all enjoyed your Spring Break, including our extra day! I spent time with my family and read and relaxed. It was wonderful!

This week's IA: PE
Next week's IA: Art

Today we began our Science Expedition. To kick it off, we viewed our mystery piece. This mystery piece included artifacts, photographs, maps, audio, and text. Students observed the pieces, then worked independently to try to figure out how all of the pieces fit together and what our science case study might be. Tomorrow, students will work collaboratively to continue to try to solve our mystery. Check with your child tomorrow to see what his or her thinking is.