Curriculuar Updates

Hello 4Ry Families!

This month, each child has shown impressive gains in the effort and perseverance that they bring to challenging tasks. It is amazing to compare work samples from September to the work that the children are currently doing. The increase in detail, sophistication, and higher order thinking skills in all subject areas is truly impressive.

I have a couple of curricular and housekeeping updates to share with you as we sail through spring.

Reading:

The children are hard at work learning to synthesize multiple texts for common literary structures. For example, after reading a poem by Maya Angelou and a short story , the children identified a theme common in both texts. They were then tasked with writing an essay to substantiate their thesis about the theme by citing and explaining multiple pieces of evidence from both texts.

While working on these and other test-preparatory skills, the students continue to read shared realistic fiction novels. As I’m sure you’ve seen, the students collaborate via writing with their partners. When the students write letters back and forth with their literacy partners, they responded to one another and share their thinking. The students are encouraged to share ideas connected to concepts they’ve learned about this semester in reading like character change and motivation, theme, symbolism, and foreshadowing.

Writing:

I was profoundly moved by the impressive growth demonstrated by all of our children during the memoir unit in writing. Thank you for providing written feedback to your child when he shared his memoirs with you last weekend. Your comments will make a beautiful addition to your child’s portfolio.

Math:

During the last month we have covered many different topics in math workshop. The students have learned about determining area and perimeter, identifying and describing geometric solids, using metric and U.S. Customary units of weights and measures, and creating and interpreting different forms of graphs.

Science:

We’re wrapping up our unit about Earth’s place in the solar system. During this unit, the students examined planetary motion, day/night, year, seasons, and the phases of the moon. Next week, the students will learn about study strategies that they will use to prepare for a solar system assessment.

Homework:

You may have noticed that homework has changed a little bit this week.

Each night the students are assigned either spelling or Wordly Wise, reading in their partner reading book for at least 20 minutes, and writing a response letter to their partner, and math practice from the day’s lesson.

Including reading, homework should take about one hour to complete. If children are applying their best effort, but homework takes longer than one hour, they should stop and write me a note to explain.

If your child seems to be spending much less than the suggested amount of time, it is important to make sure that care and effort are being given to any written work. Also, challenge activities are available to children everyday both in school and as homework. I encourage children to take advantage of these activites for added enrichment.

It seems as if the number of missed assignments on a regular basis is increasing. Each assignment is written down in the assignment book each day. Please encourage your child to use his assignment book as a to-do list and check off items as they are completed

Expectation Clarifications:

Spelling - Each night students do an activity involving their spelling words and write five sentences using their words. On Fridays, the students are quizzed, so studying on Thursdays is recommended.

Wordly Wise - In addition to the exercises, it is important that students study and practice their words. They take Wordly Wise quizzes on Fridays. One easy way to study is to go to www.wordlywise3000.com.  

Reading Response Letters: Each student should write about a page (if hand written) per night. I recommend that students write one paragraph in response to any questions or new ideas their partner brought up in the previous letter, and a second paragraph to explain and new thinking, insights, or questions that have emerged from that night’s reading.

Finally, MCAS dates are 4/25, 4/26, and 4/27. On MCAS days I invite children to bring an additional breakfast snack to school so that they can fuel up upon arrival!

Please do not hesitate to ask if you have any questions!

Jen Ryan