Book Clubs

Our fantasy book clubs began with the selection of group texts and now we get to the task of becoming more independent in our reading work.  Each group has set their own pace of reading and made a plan to read a specified number of pages each night with the goal of finishing a book in one week. Some books are much shorter so that club will be expected to read more books that one.

At home, each child has to jot a post it with an important idea from their reading. These post it are to be placed on the Book Club Schedule sheet and brought to each book club meeting. The goal is to take the ideas/ important parts and through talk, engage higher order thinking skills. To help your child, there was a Fantasy Response Menu placed in the homework folder with eight choices for what to focus on as your child reads. The bullet points give ways in which the reader can write about the book. Each child should chose one choice/ bullet point that best match their reading to focus on for their nightly post it.

Town Hall

The trip to see The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe went very well thanks to our chaperones, Mrs. Longo, Mrs. Walsh and Mr. Basse. The kids were a great audience!

Monday News

Thank you to the boys and parents who made sure their green reports were signed. I had forgotten to mention it on Friday's post but many of you were on top of that anyway!

*Tomorrow, we are going to Town Hall. We will leave the school at 9:15 and hopefully get there in time to be seated before the 10:30 show. We will return to have lunch either in the classroom or the lunchroom. The bus ride may be lengthy and if your child gets motion sickness, please supply him/her with a sour hard candy which can alleviate some nausea. While we will make every effort to kept a child comfortable we cannot give any child medication like Dramamine so please plan accordingly.

*Test folders went home today. In it you will find last weeks math test on Unit 3 and today's spelling test. You'll notice that due to the new spelling program, your child was tested on only half of the words on their word list. It is still important to study all the words since it is expected that those words will be used correctly in writing pieces.

* We began our fantasy book clubs by assigning groups and picking books with our clubs to read together. The groups met and set a goal for how many pages they will try to read tonight and wrote the page number on a post it  attached to the front cover. Some children also took home extra books to read because they did not want to exceed the group goal and get ahead in the story.
We also got a brand new reading log and it is suggested that the book club book be used for the response there.

*Finally, a belated thanks to the parents who came in and assisted with First Friday this past week! We also want to thank the families that donated books to the classroom during the Scholastic Book fair. Those books helped add to our nonfiction work and generated much excitement amongst our readers!

Week 13

We made dream catchers today to wrap up our Native American studies. Onward to Explorers of the New World!
Here's what we can look forward to during the week of December 6:

* We will be going to Town Hall this Tuesday to watch a live performance of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. What a fun way to get into the fantasy genre! Due to the unpredictability of Manhattan traffic, your child will need a lunch as we may not get back in time for school lunch.

*We will have our first spelling test under the new Words Their Way program. Your child has a work book with a list of words to study this weekend.

* We will meet with Ms. Hanson's class on Friday for our Buddies workshop!

Have a warm weekend!

Poll Answer

 If 6x-2= 28, then x = 5. Congratulations to everyone that voted !