Highlights from Week 18!

We had a short week with Monday off to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr! Next week, we will have another shortened week with Friday off for our day between semesters. Can you believe that it is already the middle of the school year?? After that day, our specialist time will switch: PE will be on Monday/Wednesday and Art on Tuesday/Thursday. In addition to our Art/PE specialists, our third graders will be starting music next week! Leschi has hired a new music teacher for students in grades K-3. Every other week, classes will meet with the music teacher for 30 minutes twice a week. Our class was assigned Monday and Wednesday from 9:50-10:20. During this time, the 4th graders in our class will continue to have work time in the classroom.

Highlights:
-We are well into the drafting portion of our non-fiction research books. Students are learning to use their notes to write about their topic in their own words. We will continue this work for the next few weeks.
-New math units have started for all three math groups. Ms. Deese's group will begin a unit on Multiplying with Decimals, my 4th grade group is learning Multiplying with Double Digits, and my 3rd grade group is learning Division Concepts. During this unit, I will also be pulling small groups to review and learn some new geometry concepts that you may see in the homework as well.
-In science, students were introduced to three types of rocks: sedimentary, igneous, and metamorphic. We will begin studying each of our 12 types of rocks and learn what makes each unique.
-Every student has written a bio on their Medieval Times character. Those introductory letters are hanging outside our classroom - come check it out! Ms. Anders is helping us by making busts of our characters with clay during art!
-Next week will be our last week dissecting non-fiction books in reading. The unit starting in February will be Poetry! Another exciting part of reading time is our new couch in the classroom! We had a classroom meeting today setting up some rules and expectations on the couch - here it is!

-Genuis Hour: we took some time off from Genuis Hour during the holidays and because our weeks have been so short recently. However, we continued today with learning how to set up a website! Students were so excited and engaged in learning how to create their own site. A parent letter has gone home today that has a permission slip portion so that parents can sign off on students creating a site. It is a student blog through Weebly, and teachers have the access and control what can be published on each site. If your child is going to present their information through a blog, please sign the form. The blog is only for the Genuis Hour Project and posts must be related to the topic. It is optional, so students are not required to make their own blog. Here is an infographic on how blogging can help students:

-We are going on our next field trip on Valentine's Day with Ms. Deese's class! We will be going to MOHAI, so please return the field trip form with $4 as soon as possible. Please consider chaperoning as well! Thank you!

*We will have our first auction next Thursday (January 30th). If you would like to donate any cool little prizes or funds for me to get prizes, please let me know as soon as possible!!