Weekly Update

Dear Families,

It is great to be back in the classroom again. I hope you all had a nice and relaxing vacation and had a chance to spend some quality time together. We have been very busy in school this week and accomplished much.

Our literacy unit in response to literature continues. This week, the students had the opportunity to view several benchmark pieces and discuss the scoring of these pieces. We looked at pieces that lacked elements of paragraph writing and “added” our own ideas and suggestions. We also scrutinized paragraphs that met the standard and exceeded the standard. We will continue working on developing our own writing responses next week.

Our science unit is well under way and we had the opportunity to read many articles and books together as a class this week as we did not have Word Study. We also responded to the first wiki-posted science question during our Computer Lab time this week. Periodically, I will post questions regarding various science themes in our Classroom Digital Portfolio, currently linked in the sidebar in the Blog. The students will be assigned questions and respond in different ways to these questions. Please check them out. They will be posted well in advance as the objective here is to encourage scientific and critical thinking skills. The students responded to question 1 today, and will respond the question 2 at a later date. The final assessment for our unit on Light Energy will be a two-part assessment. The students will be assessed in a traditional paper-based test, but they will also be assessed in a Voicethread, which allows all students to show their understanding in many different ways as they can text, upload pictures/slides/videos, doodle and speak. This assessment will be posted on the Classroom Digital Portfolio shortly for all to see. We will, however, complete it inside the classroom and the students are expected to complete it on their own. Previewing the assessment is encouraged but not required. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. If you do not have access to a computer at home, please know that your child will have many opportunities during the school-week to view and discuss this assessment. Thank you.

Next week will be our last week on Light Energy vocabulary. The week following, we will begin words related to our new Social Studies theme, Colonial Times. We will start by learning about explorers, primarily focusing on those who went to the Americas. (These words will be posted on the wiki in the Link Library). We will learn about Jamestown, the Mayflower and then proceed to expand upon the various aspects of Colonial life itself; its food, clothing, occupations, and housing, etc. As a culminating experience, the students will create a newspaper together, entitled, yes you guessed it…”Colonial Times”!!!

The students will learn how to use our school email next week. We will start by having a class with Jessica Wilson, our Technology Integration Specialist on Tuesday. She will discuss the expectations and the school rules regarding email. Please know that the students can ONLY access their email at the school and the purpose for this is purely academic as teachers can now send assignments and links electronically. Students will not be allowed to access email to “write each other” or “chat”. Access and use of email will be within the regular curricular schedule and I can, as all other teachers at the school, access everything that is written. The students will learn appropriate email customs, how to link, attach, send and manage folders. Please visit our first email response later next week, listed in our Red Clover section (Classroom Digital Portfolio). The students will respond to our last Red Clover book by emailing me their response. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you.


News and Reminders:
• Parent-teacher conferences are scheduled for April 15th and 16th, with half days for the students. I will send out sign-up sheets next week.
• Our next marking period end on April 2nd. Report cards will go home the following week, Friday April 9th.
• 3rd graders are taking home their math fluency sheets every week now. Please make sure you practice these facts at home daily. Students are expected to master 50 addition, subtraction and multiplication facts in 3 minutes by the end of 3rd grade. Please contact me if you have any questions.

Have a great weekend.
Regards,

Maria McCormack