Our Week – January 10

This week the children put the finishing touches on their inquiry research projects.  They’ve done a lot and they are feeling proud of their accomplishments.  We’ve been reading more about the world as we prepare for our next research project. We’re also learning about time and most exciting, has been learning cursive.

Cursive – Clock Climbers

We are beginning to learn cursive letter formation.  We are using a system called Loops and Groups.  The letters are grouped according to how they are formed.  Clock climbers start at the bottom, travel in an arch to 1 o’clock, retrace back down the line, curve up to complete the circle and then curve down to form the connector.  We’ve learned a, d, g, q and c.  It is challenging to keep the line going through all the letters and words. It is challenging to develop good letter formation habits – but mostly the class is having fun.

3 E’s Inquiry Wonderland

is Tuesday, January 14. 

The museum will be open from 2:15 – 2:45 and then in the evening from 5:30 to 6:15

This week the children chose the name for their inquiry magazine.  They decided to name it 1… 2… 3…Inquiry. They also designed the cover and created a picture representing their inquiry topic for it.

Everyone has completed all the parts of their project.  Here are the steps behind what you will see.  First they read, researched and took notes.  Next they determined what was important and decided how to organize the information into categories and paragraphs.  Then they designed and created their museum displays.  Once the displays were done, they selected the information they wanted to share in a classroom magazine.  They designed and created pages for that.  (We hope this will be ready for the museum, though it may take a bit longer to be put together at the printer.) Next they create a picture to hang in the hallway outside the classroom.  This is to give museumgoers a preview of what they will find inside. Each of these pictures is captioned with a sentence showing how we adjectives add detail to writing.  And finally, the last piece of the project was to create a picture for the cover of the magazine.  Yesterday was the deadline – and they are all ready.  We can’t wait for you to come and see.

We hope when you come that you will tour each of the displays and talk to the researchers about their inquiry.  They are ready to talk to you about why they chose their topic and the information they found most interesting as they researched and wrote.  I know I have written this before, but please remember, we asked the children to get help with editing before printing.  Some of them did, so their spelling and punctuation was corrected and some of them did not.  We hope you can look beyond that, at this point.  Learning that editing and revision is an important step in finishing is part of the process.  Our next research project will begin next week.  The children will have an opportunity to immediately apply what they learn from this project in that one.

Bits and Pieces –

  • We’ve created maps of the world and maps of our yards.  See if your child can remember the five things all maps have.
  • We’re learning about fractions.  The children are coming to understand numerator and denominator.
  • We’ve continued to develop understanding of perimeter and have begun to add in the concept of area.
  • We are nearly finished with The Mystery at Pine Lake. We’ll soon find out who raised the dam and caused the loons to lose their first clutch of eggs.
  • In Open Circle we’ve been discussing the importance of speaking up and of cooperation.  We’ve talked about respectful listening – something many in our class are challenged by – and respectful participation in discussions.  We are learning about when to lead and when to take direction from others.

 

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