We had a nice start to 2013 with many students coming back rested and ready for the new year. Many students have set goals to do even better this year.
Family Friday was exciting as we had professional actors (Bellamy's family) come share their craft with us. Students worked on skits based on one of the five rules in our school's community code. Many parents came and offered their sage advice as our students worked out the details of their skit. The skits will be performed for our buddy class and some students are choosing to present theirs to the rest of the school during a special assembly. There will be more details coming soon.
Here's what is happening next week:
- We are wrapping up our Native Americans of New York unit next week with our final project. Many families have stepped in to contribute materials in order for us to make models for our longhouse. The materials will be needed on Monday. Please check your child's homework folder for an update about the collection.
- In reading, you'll notice that students will write their response to nonfiction but read fiction at home. This is to help students review fiction skills for letter level testing.
- We will return to essay writing this week when we write Research-based Argument Essays. These essays will require students to take a strong point of view and present researched evidence to debate their point. This unit will build on the work we did with five paragraph essays last fall. This week, we took the time to work on adding elaboration to our writing by adding description, explaining how, and why. Often our students have used the "for example" starter to elaborate and we are now adding in an explicit statement that further explains the example in our writing. Even though we've done essay before, our main objective is to do them even better!
- We are headed to the Armory this Tuesday. Please encourage your child to wear running shoes.
Have a wonderful weekend!
