We’ve made it through another melting week.  Your children have been awesome.  Each day we learn a little bit more about each other and find ways to establish a classroom community that will allow us to do our best alone and succeed together.  Here’s hoping this is the last of the hot and humid weather.  But if not, I’m looking on the bright side – it is far better to be hot and looking forward to the school year, than being hot and wishing for summer vacation.  Despite the heat, we are having a great time sharing books, writing stories, poems and reading responses, solving problems and exploring science.  It is really nice to be together.

S.E.L. – Creating Our Class Goals

This week during Open Circle and Morning Meeting the class generated a list of jobs they would like to have in the classroom.  We planned them out, created the chart and got started with them on Friday.  The students are excited to have different responsibilities in the class to help each other out.

We also spent time talking about what goals we might like to have for our classroom.  We decided we would like to be kind, to follow the Golden Rule, to be respectful to each other and the materials in the classroom, to be safe and to have fun.  We learned what the word “non-negotiable” meant.  We decided that our five goals should be non-negotiable.  We made a commitment to meeting these goals each day. We know there are some days we may make mistakes – that’s okay.  We’ll learn from them and do better tomorrow.

The Science of Weather

This week we learned more about different cloud types.  We created our own mini-clouds to discover what exactly clouds are made of.  Ask your child what they did to make it.  See if they can tell you how clouds feel – are they fluffy, sticky, soft or misty?  Ask your child about the lab and see what they can remember to tell you.

At the beginning of the week we created a Venn diagram of the cloud types.  We sorted cumulus from cirrus and cirrus from stratus.  Soon we’ll be able to make general predictions about the weather.

are also learning about the Water Cycle.  We are learning lots of vocabulary like evaporation, water vapor, droplets, condensation and precipitation.  At this point we’re not always certain yet which term is which, but we’ll get there.

Generating Topics for Writing

This week we learned a “Quick Write” routine.  When there is a Quick Write assignment we’ll be writing in the back of our journals. There will be two topics to choose from and always a third, “whatever you choose” option.  Once the journals have been passed out and everyone is in their preferred writing spots we’ll begin seven minutes of silent writing. The goal of this routine is to help the children see how much they can actually accomplish in a short time.  It is also to help them generate lots of little pieces of writing on a wide variety of topics.  Eventually, when we have a dozen or so pieces to choose from, each child will select one piece of interest to extend and develop more completely. Quick Writes are fun.

We also began a Mind Map of interests, passions, favorites and/or hobbies.   The children placed themselves in the middle of the maps and drew out connections and sub-connections.  We’ll be using these next week to learn about paragraphing and to learn about the blogging process.  Our first blog post will be on paper.  First we’ll do the writing.  Next we’ll create and search for the images that will illustrate the important parts of the writing and finally we’ll “post” it for comments.  Before we comment on each other’s writing, the class will learn how to write comments that are positive, specific and helpful. We’ll invite classmates and other familiar adults in the school to make comments on post-its to attach to the paper blogs.

Once we are familiar with the blogging sequence – message to share, images to illustrate the message – post and (hopefully) comment – the student blogs will be set so each child can begin sharing posts for you and the world to read.

(An exciting blogging aside – we received a comment from a 3^rdgrade in Spokane.  I am hoping we can make a connection with them and they can be our first set of blogging buddies!)

Bit and Pieces –

• We completed our first chapter book read aloud from the Zoey and Sassafrasseries, Dragons and Marshmallows.  To create and celebrate our community as readers together we’ll mark each book completion with a special celebration.  This time we made dragons.  It was fun.
• We have begun our second chapter read aloud, Phineas L. MacGuire…Erupts! This book is also part of a series that explores science and the scientific process.  This series is realistic fiction.
• We have a challenge with Mr. Caron on Wednesday, September 12^th.  It will be outdoors, weather permitting, so the children should dress accordingly.
• Our first field trip is to Camp Lincoln on September 20^th.  While the entire grade is going, we will participate in activities as class groups.
• We’ve begun our beginning of the year assessments.  That means that much of the work that is done isn’t coming home.  The student work this week is minimal.