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
1 Comment
Henry
1/25/2016 12:11:44 pm
Thanks for this great update Erin! The Happiness Habit module is superb, I wish I was taught that in grade 3.
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SnapshotsA peek at life inside of J3T , curated by Ms. Erin M. Threlfall Archives
June 2016
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