Week 20 Highlights!

We celebrated Valentine's Day this week as well as invite Beecher's Cheese Pure Food Kids Foundation to come and teach us how to make vegetarian chili and hold a nutrition workshop in our classroom!  Both were fun days where we got to make food/snacks and get lots of hands-on experience in our pseudo Room 307 Kitchen!  Take a look at all of the pictures of students chopping (look at their chopping skills!) and helping to make our chili - the onion group had to take many breaks due to the tears! :)

For our Valentine's Day snack, we made Sweetheart Buddies and although it wasn't the most nutritious snack, it sure was delicious!  It got pretty hectic with everyone helping to make it and I forgot to take action shots, but here is the finally product!  We had it with some strawberry milk... yum.

Updates:

-In our current writing unit, students continued revising their Civics informational pieces and focused on writing strong introductions and conclusions.  All students should be finished with their first drafts and ready to start publishing this week!

-All math groups are working on their current decimals units!

-Students were excited to begin working with their very own microscopes during science this week!  They had the chance to examine small pictures called microfiche under microscopes and will start observing microscopic organisms soon.

-For our fantasy unit in reading, we continued our read aloud of Gregor the Overlander and met with our book club groups.  Students are expected to finish their reading and the book club assignment by the time the book club meets each week.  There is a lot of accountability within the group to finish and produce quality work and have a meaningful conversation.

-Last but not least, this week, Ms. Trapp taught a philosophy lesson!  Students participated in their first ever philosophical discussion.  They had a chance to hear some of Plato's Myth of Gyges and talk about what makes something right or wrong.  We will continue to have philosophy sessions once in a while with Ms. Trapp - it really makes them think!

Reminders:

-Black History Biography Projects should be well under way at home.  If not, please start now!  Rubrics will go home this week!

-100th Day of School is on Wednesday, February 18th!

Week 19 Highlights!

Hi 307 Families!  Ms. Trapp here.  February is off to a busy start in 307.  Here are some of the highlights from the week:

-On Monday, Leschi hosted two community members for the first Black History Month assembly, Dr. Danielson from the Odessa Brown Clinic and Dr. Dawn Mason, a former Washington Representative.  They both gave encouraging and inspiring talks to our Leschi community.

-On Thursday, the 4th and 5th grade classes participated in the Global Reading Challenge.  Two students from 307, Erica and Tali, won with their team the Reading Rockets and will be representing Leschi at the semi-final challenge!

-Students met with their Kindergarten and 1st grade buddies in Ms. Chin's class on Friday to work on a Valentine's fraction activity.

Updates:
-This week in reading, we started a new Fantasy unit!  We began a new read aloud, Gregor the Overlander, and started our fantasy book clubs.  Ask your student about their new book club book!

-Science started back up this week with our new Microworlds unit.  Students worked on making scientific observations and will begin using microscopes next week!

-Students began making revisions to their information text drafts in writing.

-This week in math, we started learning about decimals!

Reminders:
-Black History Night is coming up on the 26th of this month.  4th and 5th grade students at Leschi will be completing a Cereal Box Biography!  It will be a fun project to share information in honor of courage African Americans in our history - details coming home this week!

-5th grade families: permission slip for FLASH went home on Thursday - please be sure to sign and return them to indicate whether or not you want your student to participate.

-Mid-Winter Break is coming up!  There is no school on February 16th and 17th!

Weeks 16, 17, & 18 Highlights!

What a busy month we had in January!  So many events, assemblies, the start of many new units, and holidays!  Some big events that we had in January were:

-Martin Luther King Jr. Assembly and service project - all of the 4/5 grade classes helped to clean the bathrooms at Leschi and made them beautiful for the rest of the school!  It was hard work, but we were inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and how he was a great role model for everyone.  He stood up for what was right and we want to do the same at Leschi.  As 4/5th graders, we need to set a good example to other students so here are some of the pictures of our hard-working students!

-Toy Company Store Opening - was a BLAST!  Mrs. Savage's 2/3 grade class came to purchase our products and many companies even sold out of all of the products!  We can't post the pictures that we took during the Toy Store Opening because there were other students here from a different class, but here are pictures before the opening and some of our products that we made.

-We visited the Seattle Public Library to hear Sundee Frazier speak.  She is the author of Brendan Buckley's Universe and Everything In It.  She was a very dynamic speaker and we were able to learn a lot about how she became a writer.  

-For writing, we started on writing our informational text based on all we learned about civics.  Students are working through our flash drafts and organizes our writing into subsections to clearly share what they know.  

-In math, we are finishing up fractions and beginning to learn about decimals!

-We also wrapped up our informational reading unit - learning all about text structures, and comparing and analyzing text. 

-Science is starting back up next week: Microworlds!