We're so excited for our field trip to the Poets in the Galleries program at the de Young on 10/16 and 10/23! Thanks so much to the drivers who signed up with Genevieve. And, of course, thanks to Genevieve for organizing that for me. The 5th/6th and 7th/8th grade classes have both completed the program and the feedback from Evan and Javier is so exciting.
http://deyoung.famsf.org/education/poets-galleries
Reading
We’re digging into our Dear Mr. Henshaw texts! We are
working our way through the book, reading independently, listening to me read
aloud, and reading aloud in small groups. Students are investigating the
character traits that define Leigh Botts, Mr. Henshaw, and Leigh's parents. We’re searching for the
meaning “beneath the surface” of the text for a more complete picture of the
characters. Students ask themselves questions like, “what does this
passage say about who Leigh is? What matters to him? Why? How do you know? What
evidence can you find in the text?”
Next,
we will move on to analyzing the ways that Leigh’s life experiences inform the
character traits we've identified.
As we read, we keep track of the words that confuse us, that
are difficult to spell, that are interesting, or that we might like to try and
use in our own writing. We put them up in our “Words that make us wonder” wall and revisit them regularly.
We
are also writing letters to our favorite authors, a la Dear Mr. Henshaw!
Students continue to enjoy time with their independent
reading books as well.
Ambassador Workshop
We have successfully completed three parts of our four-part
Ambassador Workshop series! Throughout the year, the students rotate through the weeklong position
of Team 34 Ambassador. In that post, they are responsible for really stepping
up as leaders. The Ambassador facilitates the class meeting, reports back their
observations of whether or not the class successfully upheld their social
contract during the afternoon specialist classes, and greets visitors to the
classroom. We’ve been working on greeting visitors with a welcoming smile, eye
contact, and a firm handshake.
Writers’ Workshop
We’re on the final leg of our personal narrative writing
unit in which the students use everything they have learned about effective
personal narrative writing to draft and ultimately publish their best writing. The
writers have been living like writers, seeing the fiber of their lives as
worthy of recording. Now the students have selected what they feel is their
strongest small moment story, the one that says the most about who they are and
that they are most excited to share with readers. They are creating a new draft
that utilizes everything they’ve learned. We will be developing and revising
these particular stories until the end of the unit.
Math
In 3rd grade math, we are deep into our review
and strengthening of subtraction skills.
We model and build numbers with base ten blocks and explain how that
relates to the algorithms we use to solve equations efficiently on paper. The
students are feeling challenged by subtracting across zeroes. (2000-333=?)
These numbers require the most precision and planning ahead and demonstrate
strong executive function and understanding of regrouping. We are also working to gain more automaticity
with simple one-digit addition and subtraction facts.
In 4th grade the students are deep in their work
with multiplication. As with the addition and subtraction facts that came
before, it is so crucial that 4th graders develop automaticity with
the multiplication facts so that when we can move into multi-digit
multiplication, they can focus on developing clarity with those important
algorithms. We use Making Math Real’s 9-lines visual imaging technique to image
the math facts. We continue to do some modeling of multiplication with arrays
and grouping and we are currently reviewing addition and subtraction with
regrouping.
Poetry Club
During this morning’s Poetry Club, the young poets listened
to mentor poetry by Tennyson, Ric Masten, and Valerie Worth that modeled important strategies for generating poetry. They then chose a big topic/idea
that gives them big, strong feelings. They then chose a small object or moment
or detail that holds the big feeling for them to write, write, write about.
Here are some powerful examples:
As I read the words
they swim off the page
and swirl around in my head
to you
it may just be a dusty piece of paper
but to me it’s
an amazing story.
Time for this
time for that
time flies by
the hands
so easy to read
yet when you really
think hard
it is so hard
like watches
on wrists
and clocks in homes
and clocks and time
don’t grow on trees
valuable
you could say they are
and I would totally
agree
Back and forth
across
the charge
the spark of light
on the world
of blackness
Revenge
Sometimes it swarms
around you like
Like a mosquito on a
Warm night
Then one
Bites you
And you want to give it
Some revenge
Do you hear the big ideas and the small moments/objects that
hold the feeling? Amazing!
