Weekly Update

We have had another exciting week of learning in our third and fourth grade classroom.

Our Native American study continued this week. We’re still studying the Eastern Woodland region and this week we learned about the housing, food and clothing there. The students worked in small cooperative groups and built models of houses representing this region. The students were assigned a specific house-type and given the materials needed to build it, but they were challenged to use all of their newly acquired knowledge to figure out how to build their model and what characteristics were essential to identify their specific house type. They did an amazing job!!!! They talked and shared ideas, they searched through our Theme Library in the classroom and they consulted their own Theme folders, filled with information, pictures, and stories that we have collected so far. Not only do these model houses contain all the necessary elements of Native American houses, the students also learned to investigate and do research as they worked together! We hope you will stop by next week during our Open House to see these houses.

The HCS Open House is scheduled for Thursday, October 8th. It will begin with the traditional spaghetti dinner from 5pm-6pm, and then continue with visits to the classrooms from 6pm-7pm. We hope you can visit our great school and classroom!

In reading and math, all students are getting ready for the NECAP tests, which will be administered the week of October 12th. All third and fourth grade students will take tests in reading and math. We have worked diligently on establishing critical thinking strategies so we know hoe to tackle challenging tasks in all subject areas, not just reading and math. Ask your child to tell you about some of these strategies. For example, ask your child to explain how re-reading can help us and how “marking up” the text with our Reading Pencil help us zoom in on the important aspects of a particular passage or math problem. We have learned that there is a difference between re-telling and comprehending a text simply based upon the information given and re-telling a text when we use all of our prior knowledge. Sometimes, as critical readers we have to understand texts and find evidence in that text, regardless of our own knowledge of that particular topic. The distinction is sometimes challenging to understand and we have worked very hard in the classroom finding evidence in various types of texts!

The weather is getting colder outside this time of the year. Please do not forget that we have outdoor recess every day (weather permitting) and your child should bring a thick jacket or sweater to school every day. Please also discuss the importance of not sharing hats, scarves and hair accessories with your child in the prevention of spreading lice and germs. Thank you.



Ask your child about:
• Mrs. Behun’s class visit for our Native American unit and our movie on the Smartboard
• Swedish Name Day
• The three extra letters in the Swedish alphabet
• Our new read aloud, Sacagawea
• Visualization as a reading strategy to help us comprehend better

Have a great weekend!
Regards,

Maria McCormack