Hello!

Although it was a short week, I wanted to give you a few notes of what we have been up to 🙂

• Last week we started a mini store. Students are given $4.00 in fake coins and bills to buy different supplies they may want to add to their shelf! They can buy a new marker to replace one that has dried out, a mechanical pencil, a replacement crayon for one that went missing, or maybe they want a new colorful ruler! This has been fun AND a great practice with money. Students are responsible for counting their money upfront to be sure they have $4.00, keeping track of how much they are spending in total, and then giving the right amount/asking for the correct amount of change.

• We acted out what has happened in the last few chapters of Holes! Now that the recent chapters are solidified in our memories, we are confident that we will be able to pick up where we left off, even with a little break from reading together as a class 🙂

• This week we finished our final car color graphs. Then we asked each other questions to practice reading bar graphs!

• No one has solved this one yet…can you find a solution for this week’s popsicle stick challenge?!

• More fun from the week

Have a great long weekend!

-Anna

Hi parents!

Take a look at what we’ve been up to!

• This week we have been reading about Ruby Bridges. Two of our characters in Holes were punished because they were not the same race but were in love. This brought up the topic of segregation in our class. Many students had excellent ideas about who in our history had made great strides to desegregate our nation and strive for equality! Reading more about Ruby Bridges was our first step in piecing together their stories.
• Also in Holes, we read about Trout and Linda Walker trying to steal loot from the outlaw, Kate Barlow. We took the challenge upon ourselves to create structures that could protect Kate’s riches from Linda and Trout. Students used primarily blocks and Legos to create their contraptions and incorporated facial recognition, finger prints, and various traps into their designs to keep Kate Barlow’s loot safe.

• On Tuesday we read The Name Jar. The story talks about a girl who comes to the US from Korea and she is embarrassed about her name after some students on the bus laugh at her. Her classmates help make suggestions  for other possible names, but she connects to her Korean heritage and begins to embrace her name. We thought about what name we might choose if we could change our own and looked up the meaning of the name we chose. I was impressed with the connection made by the class back to our ongoing definition of identity. Does your name define you? If your name changes, does that change a significant piece of your identity? At the start of the year, we hadn’t decided if we thought someone’s identity could change. After we noted that Miss Katherine Barlow changed to be Kissin’ Kate Barlow in Holes, we realized our identities CAN change! And maybe our name is a significant part of our identity too!
• Throughout the week, we practiced listening skills. With Ms. Vash, we tried to build a specific Lego structure. The trick was that only one person could look at the goal structure at a time and while they described what needed to be done to their group, they could not touch the pieces. On Thursday we were a little silly with our listening practice while I described to the class how to draw a turkey. The catch was that students had to draw on a paper plate…on their heads! While we were able to laugh at our final products, it was another great chance to practice our listening skills.

• More fun from the week!

See you next week!

-Anna

Hi parents!

With the beautiful weather we had this past week, it’s hard to believe we’re already almost halfway through November. We made sure to get out and enjoy as much of the sunshine as we could!

• Throughout the week, we read our Scholastic magazine and learned about Mexican history as well as current Mexican culture. As we continue to dig into our own identities throughout the year, it is valuable to consider others’ cultures and communities. We created self portraits with added details of what it might be like if we woke up in Mexico! What would we be eating? What would we be celebrating? If we were wearing a mask, what design would it have?
• We completed our cup-stacking challenge this week with Ms. Vash! Most importantly, we continued our conversation about teamwork. Social emotional learning is such a key part of our curriculum. Sometimes it looks like stacking cups and talking about teamwork. Other times it looks like reading books about filling each others’ buckets. My hope is your kids are continuing these conversations with you at home!

• This week we collected data about the colors of cars in Des Plaines. Next week, we’ll put the data into graphs as we continue our study of data analysis.

• We ended the week building straw towers again. This time, the restrictions were even more challenging! Our towers had to hold a tennis ball! I was impressed with how quickly each group jumped into the design and building process. I think they were each surprised by how quickly they were able to successfully hold the tennis ball! With our teamwork skills we have been practicing and remembering lessons learned from our previous straw building, the designing and building processes were much more efficient. We were also excited to help other groups and approach this as a full class project!

• Raking and bagging leaves (but not without jumping in the pile first of course!!) 🙂

• More fun from the week!

Have a great weekend!

-Anna

Hi parents!

Take a look at what we’ve been up to this week 🙂

• Throughout this week we have been reading various picture books about kindness, teamwork, and befriending others. On Wednesday with Ms. Vash, we tried to stack cups into a pyramid. Sounds easy enough, but you can’t actually touch the cups! It was a fun partner challenge that also allowed us the opportunity to talk about what teamwork looks like, sounds like, and feels like. We ended the week with a challenge to complete an act of kindness. One of our books (Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson) compares acts of kindness to stones dropped in water — they ripple out. Our class was so excited about the challenge that many chose to find multiple ways to spread kindness! Room 104 is now full of notes and pictures telling each other how much we value each other’s friendship. This was also mentioned as a high point for many people while we discussed our highs and lows from the week.

• Earlier this week we practiced our Visual Thinking Strategies by looking at the electoral map from 2016. Students were eager to share what they knew about political parties and apply what they knew to this year’s election. I was particularly impressed by how many students had already heard of the Electoral College or already had some understanding of it! We’ll continue to analyze data from this year in the coming weeks.
• This week we mixed up our Holes summaries! Instead of only writing and drawing, we wrote skits about two of the chapters and performed them for each other. Some people went as far as to paint their nails at home to match their character! Every one of the actors who played Mr. Sir fully committed to screaming on the ground pretending they had rattlesnake venom on their face! Each partner group had the audience laughing 🙂 Acting helps us to better understand what we read. By creating props and connecting with each character, we bring the story to life! We agreed that this would be something we’d like to continue doing with other stories in the future.

 

• Can you solve one of our morning challenges? We used popsicle sticks, but you can use pencils, toothpicks, pens, etc.  See if you can find a solution!

• More fun from the week!

Have a wonderful weekend!

-Anna