Thank you for taking time to meet with me this week in our parent teacher conferences. It has been wonderful to meet with you to develop learning plans for the next trimester. You have wonderful children. They are a great group to be with every day. Our week has been full of reading, writing, picture making, problem solving, mapping and thinking. We have discovered all maps have six things: titles, keys, symbols, labels, scales and a compass rose. We are learning about bird’s eye views and the need for “keeping it real” when reading a map. We’ve been looking at different kinds of maps and trying to identify the continents and oceans on maps of the world.

Exploring Our World

As our study of maps grows, we have begun to explore the diversity of our world. We’ve been reading about the different continents to learn about the special features of each one. We discovered that North America has 11 countries. South America has 12 countries. Europe has 47 countries and Asia has 51. Africa has 54 countries, Australia 1 and Antarctica 0. We were pretty surprised by those amounts. Our estimates about the countries of the world went from 4,000 to 50. The number of countries seems small to us because the world is so big and there are so many people.

Our goal is to have each student choose a different place in the world to discover. Through research, they will develop expertise and share aspects of the country and its culture with the class and with families at an evening open house. The children have chosen a continent, country and animal to learn more about.

Through this work we will talk about assumptions and stereotypes. We will explore the cultural differences by learning about holiday traditions celebrated by all like the New Year, birthdays and weddings, housing, food and traditional clothing, We are looking forward to extending our study of maps to include an exploration of geography and people as we work to uncover what is the same and what is different.

Blog Posts

If you haven’t had the chance to stop by, please take a moment or two to read your child’s blog and leave a comment. They would love to hear from you. There is great variety in their posts. Some are sharing the slide shows they created in technology class. Some have written book reviews and “how to” drawing directions. Lots have shared the antics of their elves; while others are sharing special interests and favorite things.

Each week the children will have time to post on their blogs. With practice, the steps for posting will come more easily and I imagine the posts will become a little more descriptive and informative. The children are excited about the work and the possibilities of making connections beyond the classroom. This form of writing requires a different type of attention to an outside audience. They are aware that the writing needs to be specific and clear. They are learning to take another’s point of view to explain things to readers who may know very little about their topic.   While they know about posting with an audience in mind, right now it is a challenging demand to meet. Currently their main focus is learning all the in’s and out’s of posting, adding media and reviewing comments. It will come with practice. I am looking forward to seeing how the blogs create a record of how they grow and learn. If you have time to check out their work, please let them know by leaving a comment.

Bits and Pieces –

• We’ve been learning about different types of sentences. You might want to see if your child can tell you about them. Not everyone is certain of them at this point, but keep checking.
• We have begun to explore magnets. Earth is a big one. We are hoping to discover what they are and how they work.
• We began reading Wildwood as our next chapter read-aloud.  It is a complex and exciting fantasy adventure.  We are just getting into the good part!
• We have a challenge with Mr. Caron on Tuesday, December 8. If the weather is clear we will be outside so the children should be prepared for that.
• The Who Am I projects are due Thursday, December 10. We’ll be sharing them on Friday. We can’t wait!
• Thank you to the families who have returned permission slips for the field trip to the SEE Science museum. We are still missing a few. Do you need second copies?