Sunday, January 3, 2016

Coming Up This Week....

Happy 2016!  I hope you had a great holiday and vacation!  I am excited to start off the new year!

Reading Workshop

     We are going to be starting our Nonfiction unit in Reading Workshop this week.  Throughout the unit we will be learning about how text features in a text can help us understand a text, determining the main idea, figuring out important vs. interesting information, and  understanding the structure of a nonfiction text.
     In class I will be introducing a website called Wonderopolis to the kids.  It is a great website that answers a "wonder" each day.  Students can also search through previous "wonders" to see if they can find answers to questions that they might have.  This would be a great resource for students to go on at home as well.  Most "wonders" have text as well as a short video to go along with the answers.
     The website is:  http://wonderopolis.org/  On the website there is a section called the Wonder Jar which would be a fun activity that you and your family could try out together.  Here is some information from the website about the Wonder Jar....

The Wonder Jar was created to take all of the discussion, engagement, and exploration that is presented on the Wonderopolis site, and bring it right into the home. By choosing a “wonder” from the Wonder Jar, families will be able to share their wonders, ideas, and knowledge with each other. The Wonder Jar and its wonder entries, both pre-written and created by families themselves, is meant to create opportunities for humorous discussion, serious discussion, and general outside of the box — or outside of the “jar” — thinking!

Math Workshop
     We are continuing to work on Module 3.  This week we will be focusing on using the AREA MODEL to solve 2 digit by 2 digit multiplication problems.  This model for multiplication will be familiar to the kids because they got a lot of practice with it when they were working on 2 digit by 1 digit multiplication a few weeks ago.

Second Trimester Goals:
     This week your child will have homework on Google Docs.  Before vacation the kids wrote down what they accomplished in Trimester 1 and the goals that they had for themselves in Trimester 2.             
       They will be taking these rough drafts home so that they can type their final copy on Google Docs.  Each student has had a lot of practice signing into Google Docs in school, so they should be all set.  They will need to create a new document and share it with me.  They will not need to print at home.  All of this will be explained to the kids tomorrow, but I wanted to make you aware of this homework.  It will be due on Wednesday.

I am looking forward to a great 2016 with this class!  Have a great week!
~Jen

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