Dear Parents,

Today, we started off with students drawing/recording their plant observations. Then, students did their silent reading. After, I tallied up the reading log points. A reminder is that students are assigned to read for 30 minutes each weekday. They need to record this in their reading log and get a parent signature for each day. Then, students worked on a geometry worksheet. We went over sorting by attribute in Venn Diagrams (this was an area that some students had trouble with on the pop quiz) and we solved some shape riddles. Then, each group cut out 2D shapes and we practiced folding as many lines of symmetry in each shape as possible. We talked about how going back to basics and cutting out and folding the shapes is important. Often times, students assume there are more lines of symmetry than there are, but when actually tested, these lines are not symmetrical.

Then, we had snack, desk check, and recess.

Following recess, I introduced our student-led conference preparation. Students will be bringing home 5 items and a booklet to present to you. These 5 items are pieces of work that they have picked from the school year and will be talking about. Students will reflect on their strengths and areas for improvement. Students will also give a small section of a sheet to parents after the meeting on May 12 (at home with your child) for you to fill out giving your child 2 stars and a wish. Students are asked to return the booklet to school as soon as possible after May 12th to hand back in. Students started writing their script today and picked their 5 items and wrote explanations for their choices. Students are asked to gather their 5 pieces and bring them to school if not already there by Friday of this week.

Then, I introduced the Animal Adaptations project and went over the expectations/guidelines/marking rubric for this. Students were assigned their partners today and started brainstorming animals that they could do their presentation on. We will be starting to work on the PowerPoints tomorrow.

Following lunch, I introduced Literature Circles. We will be starting these in our class likely next week where students will read sections of an assigned novel, complete a worksheet activity on this reading section, and meet with their group to discuss the reading. Sort of like a book club 🙂 There will also be occasional quizzes as well in order to test students’ reading comprehension and check that they have been able to keep up with the reading work. We went over the Discussion Director role, which is learning how to ask open questions vs. closed questions. Open questions allow for discussion between classmates, instead of a yes or no question. We practiced this with the story “James and the Giant Peach” which I read some of to the class today.

After this, we had planners, clean-up, DPA, and then Gym. We did some Gymnastics stations today that students rotated throughout.

Reminder: Spelling Test on Thursday.

Have a good night!

Sincerely,

Ms. Wilks