Dear Parents, Welcome to a new week of learning! I hope you had a warm weekend, and enjoyed watching the snowfall during the blizzard. In my neighborhood, it was great fun to see how people gathered on the streets and became instant friends, the blizzard an opportunity to create new community connections. This week promises to be packed with learning. Before I tell you about what’s coming up, I’ll give you a glimpse back at last week’s learning. The students have been very excited to create shadow puppets to help retell the story of One Day in the Tropical Rainforest. We now have many rainforest animals, and have gained a lot of information about their role in keeping the rain forest balanced. In Math, we completed the unit called” How Long, How Tall,” during which we used our understanding of doubling and halving to help us find the relationships in numbers such as 4 and 8. We then used this information to help us solve more complex problems that involve multiplication. The students are deepening their understanding of multiplication, and are ready to move into ratio tables to help solve problems. We were lucky to have a special visit from Santiago Villalpando, who serves as the Chief of the Treaty Section of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs. Santiago came in to talk with the children about the United Nations Conference on Climate Change that took place in Paris. It was wonderful to hear about his work, and to hear the children’s thoughts on climate change. The children showed themselves to be very aware and curious global citizens! We are eager to welcome other parents to the classroom who might be able to enhance our learning. Here’s what we are up to this week… LITERACY: This week the children will be writing their reports of information on their selected biomes. This will give them the opportunity to show what they know about ecosystems and biomes, and how things are interconnected. The children will continue to develop comprehension skills as they examine information sources and identify the key elements of nonfiction text types. MATH: Our unit of study this week is all about time- how to read an analog clock to the nearest minute, and how to measure elapsed time. To help us along, please ask your child to tell you time as much as possible, while also calculating elapsed time between events. Wearing an analog wrist-watch is a great way to support this unit! UNIT STUDIES: We continue our work looking at the biomes of the world, examining the relationship between the biotic and abiotic features in an ecosystem, and how these ecosystems come together to form larger biomes. They will deepen their understanding of location, and how climate drives the features of a biome. This video might help to clarify any questions you have about biomes and ecosystems! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuejxJttBqo SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING: We are continuing our focus on the Happiness Habit: Build into Relationships. We are also taking a look at responsibility and integrity, and how behaving responsibly helps to build trust with others. We have the metaphor of the marble jar working very well in class. Ask your child about this! To help support the children as they work to act responsibly and with accountability, consider giving direct, named praise to your child when they deposit marbles into your trust jar. For instance: “ I see that you have organized your things for school before you go to bed. This shows that you are thinking ahead and being responsible enough to set yourself up for success. That makes a difference, and helps to build trust!” I recently read this article from a Stanford study on praise and developing a growth mindset. You might find it interesting, as well! That’s all the news from me for this week! Wishing you a safe and warm week ahead. Erin
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Happy New Year! I have heard wonderful stories from your holiday break. From the sounds of it, this crew knows how to make the most of a two week break. I am glad that everyone had time to rest, play, and connect with family and friends, and am also very happy to have everyone back in our "J3T Home!" Last week we hit the ground running, filling each minute with great learning. Here's a look at what we were up to, and what we will continue this week, as well. LITERACY: We read the book: One Day in the Tropical Rainforest, an informative fictional narrative that tells about the efforts of one brave boy to help save the McCaw Rainforest. The children were fascinated with all of the animals. This book connected with the previous learning, so the children were able to take the thinking deeper to see the connections between the animals and the role they play within the rainforest. Now the children are busy wit becoming experts about one animal, which they are creating a shadow puppet figure for. We will use those puppets to tell the story using the Asian art of shadow puppetry. For tech integration, the children are also creating a ComicLife story about their particular animal. This week, the children will deconstruct a report of information to create their own criteria for an effective piece. They will use this to craft their own report about a biome of their choosing. MATH: We continue our work with multiplication, and have added in ratio and scale. Ask the children about our investigation with Antonio and measurement! Please be sure that your child is reviewing their multiplication facts each evening. By now, the children should have mastery of the 0,1,2,3,4,5,6, and 7 times tables. We moved onto the 8's today, and watched this fun video to help us remember the facts. SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING: With the return from break, we have started with the Happiness Habit: BUILD INTO RELATIONSHIPS. The children had a wonderful conversation about why we call it : "build into relationships" instead of just "make friends" or "be a good friend." I was so impressed that they understood that you don't just make a friend and it's all good, you have to do things all the time to help make that friendship/relationship grow and stay strong. As Alexandra said: "You have to add to it, brick by brick." We talked about the idea of love languages, and how everyone hears and speaks love differently, and so we need to learn about others and do the things that they can hear as love. You will notice that this is one of the homework assignments. If you are interested in learning more about this concept, I highly recommend the book: The Five Love Languages . This week, we will be talking about building trust in a friendship. I will be using Brené Brown's ideas from Daring Greatly, which you can get some idea of in her talk: The Anatomy of Trust. DATES TO REMEMBER: Monday, January 18: NO SCHOOL: Martin Luther King Day I have been busy writing reports, reflecting on your children as learners. It is great to see how much growth they have had over the term, and to be able to identify new goals for them all as individual learners. Thank you for your continued trust and support along the way! Yours in Learning and Growing, Ms. Erin M. Threlfall |
SnapshotsA peek at life inside of J3T , curated by Ms. Erin M. Threlfall Archives
June 2016
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