Thank you so much for you support in helping the children uncover different pieces of history.  They are interested and aware, curious and thoughtful.  As part of this social studies work we shared All the Way to America by Dan Yaccarino.  It is his family’s story of immigrating to the United States from Sorrento, Italy.  As we read the children were able to use their background knowledge (schema) to infer when the different generations had lived.  They were spot on.  They used vehicles and clothing as markers for different eras.  I think you would have been impressed with their thinking.

Discovery Time Begins

            Our day is beginning a little differently this week.  The children are able to select from 5 different activities with a variety of academic focuses.  There is reading, independent inquiry/research and writing.  This week’s writing activity supported our work with details and was there to do, or not.  Math’s focus was geometry and working with Tangrams.  Children could build individually or they could challenge themselves with Tangos.  The science focus was observation and coming to understand what they could about trees by looking at different leaves, seeds, bark and branch samples.  The last choice was making puppets in the arts and crafts area.  They were asked to read and understand the directions and had the opportunity to learn thirds and quarters in the process.

The children seem to have enjoyed this addition to our day.  They appreciate choice and variety.  They have been challenged to set their own learning purpose and to persevere.  With time the children will learn a great deal about themselves as learners, while also exploring a greater variety of learning topics and approaches.  Already this week though excited by the openness of independent research and possibility to use the computers, several of the children realized there is no research without questions first. They also discovered that sometime books are better resources at first.

Setting Personal Learning Goals

            This week we set goals for the school year.  Some of the children chose academic goals, while others chose social goals.  Many of them set goals that they will work on in UA classes.  It is interesting for me to see how individual children are and sometimes surprising to see how they think of things.  We definitely don’t think of goals in the same way.  One child, concerned by forgetting sneakers for gym, has set a goal to learn all the activities in that class.  The only way to do that is to remember sneakers.  Another child wants to eat healthy so she can be fast. Several of the children want to learn multiplication and to write and read in cursive.  Some have specific interests like learning about foxes or robots.

In addition to writing their goals they are working to think of what they will show as evidence that they have worked on and/or met their goals.  This is a challenge.  It is difficult to think about your thinking and project forward into the future.  Metacognition is something that grows with practice and with the development of abstract thinking.  It is something that eight and nine-year old brains are just beginning to be capable of.  It will be exciting to share all this work with you in the next couple of weeks as you are able to meet for the conferences.

The Magic of Three

            Last week you some of our work come home as we worked to identify details in writing.  We continued this week by exploring how writers often work in threes to convey a mood or tone to a piece.  Three seems to be enough to get the point across.  As we looked at different picture books and different passages from chapter books as well we can see how three details creates a clear, memorable image.  We know that sometimes two or four works too, but three is the magic number for remembering.

Bits and Pieces –

•  We are enjoying The Seven Wonders of Sassafras Springs.  You might want to ask your child which of the wonders they find most interesting.  The children are keeping response journals as they listen.  You may want to ask your children how they think it is going for them as they work to record their ideas and wonderings on paper.
•  As part of our weekly exploration of who we can live up to the rules we have set for our learning community this week we discussed the importance of knowing yourself, being yourself, and thinking of others as you act.  We read the books Blabber Mouse and The Blabber Report.  We noticed how kind and considerate the other mice were in the class.  We talked about how we can work to be patient and thoughtful as well.  Again you may want to ask your child about those stories – we’d like to think we’d be so kind, but if we are honest our first reaction probably would be to yell at him and tell him to knock it off.
• Student Led Goal Setting Conferences – see enclosed sign-up sheet
•  Picture Retakes – November 13 at 8:30
•  Term 1 Report Cards – November 20 Parent Conferences to follow
• December – Readers Theater Play – Bad Boys and The Web Files