Week of February 26, 2018

The Chinese New Year Cultural Celebration at Melawati was a great day of fun and learning! In the week ahead we look forward to Book Week! Ms. Suji has some special events planned. Remember to send in gently used books for the book swap by Wednesday. The "Book Character Dress Up Day" is now Thursday. Book Bingo takes place during the week.

Thank you, parents, for the delicious Teacher Appreciation luncheon we enjoyed on Thursday!

We begin the week ahead on Day 1.

Reading 

Students are busy reading with their book clubs. Please help your child to remember to read and return the book to school each day. After looking at the "shape" of stories (we discussed a story mountain where main characters go up and down through the story) and readers are now attending to the role secondary characters play. We are also looking at how characters resolve trouble when they are tested in the climax of a story.


Writing

Students are working on their first fairy tale adaptation. They are story-telling and acting out their story to improve their drafting. Please ask your child to tell you their story. The more times they tell their story the greater detail they will likely include in the written version. Students will work on balancing narration, action, and dialogue. You will get to see the drafting process at conferences.
We will Skype with Josh Funk on Tuesday to learn more about how he writes fairy tale adaptations.

Math

This week we are focusing on the attributes of 2D shapes, with particular attention to quadrilaterals. Some shapes can go by many names, for instance,  a square is: a special rectangle, a rhombus, a parallelogram, and a quadrilateral.


Social Studies

We are continuing to look at social structure/government in ancient civilizations and will move on to belief systems and art and architecture.

Student Led Conferences

Your child is busy preparing for their Student Led Conference next week. S/he will lead you through the agenda and be ready to share learning from across the curriculum. Ms. Julie sent out a recent email detailing what this will look like. Your child will communicate with you in the language that is easiest for all of you. Plan on spending about 45 minutes in the classroom and then 15 minutes at a few "specialist" classes.

Thank you for your ongoing support.


*** In March students in 3EV will be invited to join an optional "challenge" called the Slice of Life Challenge which is a daily blogging challenge. I will be introducing it to the class on Tuesday and all students will be encouraged to participate. If your child wants to participate but is overwhelmed with home learning in addition encourage her/him to talk to me. You can learn a bit more about this here and as always please let me know if you have any questions.