Tomorrow, I will be sending your children home with order forms for Picture Day on 1/20/17. Please keep in mind that these are not individual pictures, but the classroom picture.
The dates for MAP testing have been released and are as follows:
- January 10th: Math
- January 13th: Reading
- January 20th: ELA (grammar)
Students will receive their score sheets for Paul Revere's Ride tomorrow after the final student presents. I must say, I was completely blown away by how well each and every student recited the poem. Even those who could not make it through all the way were instantly supported with positive comments from their peers. In fact, the worse someone performed, the more feedback they received! That is my favorite part of this project; seeing the students support each other.
In Language Arts this week, we have started reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. We will be taking advantage of the fact that it is a familiar story to push the students into answering some bigger questions about writing. I am really excited to reach this new level in our study of literature! We will also begin adding dialogue into the narrative rough drafts written at the end of the last quarter. If your child no longer has that draft, that is ok! Students will be required to re-write their rough draft, no matter what.
In History, we started our unit on Islam. I am so excited for this topic! I love how new it is for most of the students and it is such a blast watching them think about places so different from America and Europe. We have already explored a very different culture in Ancient China and the students are already asking some really good questions about the history of Islam. We have a beautiful slideshow prepared for later in the week with images of mosques, palaces, and calligraphy. I want to emphasize that the focus is purely historical, with some descriptions of art and architecture. The role of Islam in the Middle Ages is key and as we cover the Middle Ages, we cannot have a meaningful discussion without learning how Islam shaped European life.
In Science, we started our new unit of Meteorology. This is a really fun topic, which lends itself to some fairly in-depth study. We began with a lesson on Aristotle, the founder of meteorology. Ask your child to classify 3 items in the spirit of Aristotle!
As always, thank you for your continued support!
