A month already!

The children enjoyed our field trip to see the Ballad of Mulan.  It was exciting for them to be an audience member in a live production with music, song, and dance.  Some students had prior knowledge of the Disney version of Mulan and with this version we compared both stories.  It was great to see students so engaged and showing an appreciation for the arts. 

Here is a summary of what happened in our classroom:

​In Langauge Arts...

• We began our first writing piece this week with brainstorming on a circle map all our ideas of things we enjoy doing during the summer.  The genre of writing this quarter will be a categorical narrative.  As students shared their ideas, they created their own circle maps.  Some of the ideas included going to the beach, library, camping, playing school, hiking, watching movies, making smores, pool, water balloons fights, sleepovers, etc..  The next day students created a tree map with the following two categories: indoor activities & outdoor activities and classified all their ideas into two categories.  Next week students will be working on picking two activities they enjoy most from each category to elaborate on.    
• Using a tree map, students identified and classified story elements such as characters, setting, and events in the stories we read this week.  They learned how to determine a main character from a supporting character.  They also learned that the setting includes both time and place and is likely to change throughout the story.  
• During grammar lessons, students are practicing to capitalize and end their sentences with the proper punctuation.  They are also identifying whether a sentence is a statement, a question, or a command.  They learned how to find root words and can identify inflectional endings such as ed, ing, s, & es.  

In math...

• Using our Stepping Stones curriculum, students learned about number lines and number tracks and can distinguish between the two.  They used number lines to help them determine nearby multiples of 10.  Using a number line, students could see whether a number like 37 was closer to 30 or 40. 

In Social Studies...

• We kicked off our "Stranger Danger" Project-Based-Learning Unit.  A letter was sent home that details the unit more specifically.  So far students have watched some age-appropriate short news clips of children in their community who almost became victims of "stranger danger" but acted in a safe way and prevented themselves from getting harmed.  Not intended to scare the children, but rather these lessons and videos will be used to bring to light the realities of the situation.  Ultimately we all want our children to make smart choices and behave safely in risky situation.   

REMINDERS AND ANNOUCEMENTS

• No School Monday Labor Day Holiday
• No oral reading fluency and skills pack this coming week
• We will NOT be doing U1, W4 spelling list this coming week.  Instead it will be an adjusted list Ul, W3 Review Words.  The list will come home with the children on Monday
• Please return all library books on Tuesday 9/5, as we will be borrowing again
• PE for group A-please wear shoes and comfortable clothing on Tuesday​