Dear Parents,
This has been a fun packed
week of poetry, fractions, figurative language, and folk tales.
Poetry
As
you know we have been working on poetry for quite some time. Last week we
looked at numerous types of poems to get a sense of the many different ways
that we can write poetry. This week we are discussing what we can do
differently to our poems or add to our poems in order to grow them. We’re
currently looking at author’s craft moves to help motivate us and to brainstorm
ideas that we could use.
We
are in the final stages creating poetry that we would like to publish and share
with our peers and family. Next week we will be assembling our poetry books and
also practicing for our upcoming poetry slam!
Fractions
“Fractions are everywhere,” one of the students told me!!
Since we have begun fractions the kids have been finding fractions almost
everywhere, especially at lunch and on the playground. As they eat their
sandwiches they continuously point out that they have one half or a fourth
left. I’m excited that they are excited about fractions.
This week we reviewed partitioning wholes with the geo boards and we began working on partitioning sets. So don’t
be alarmed if your child has come home speaking of cutting cookies or sharing them.
I promise that I have not been stuffing your children with cookies. We created
and decorated cookies on paper and then they used those to divide up amongst
their group of four. So many of them told me that they really enjoyed this
activity. It has really enhanced their ability to notice and name fractions and
also to partition circles.
Figurative Language
This
was our first week looking at figurative language, but it has gone very well.
We began with similes and onomatopoeias, which they were more than familiar
with thanks to Mr. Hass and the kids noticing and naming craft moves throughout
the year.
We began each day with a read aloud that displayed the
figurative language we would be covering that day. They all enjoyed That’s Good! That’s Bad! and Crazy like a fox. When the read aloud
was over we brainstormed new examples of the figurative language and placed
them into our class figurative language book. The examples they gave were
really great! For onomatopoeia they came up with boom, splat, tick-tock, grrr,
and so many more. Tomorrow we will continue with the alliteration that we
started today and next week we will focus on personification and idioms.
My
initial plan was for the kids to focus on figurative language and how it
enhances the experience of the reader, but these kidos are so brilliant that they
helped to grow my plan into something much more. Many of the students started
asking “Can we include this in our poetry writing?” WOW, of course you can, was my thought. With one question they
managed to merge reading and writing.
Folk Tales
Folk tales reveal a great deal about culture and
traditions. This week in social studies we are looking at the folktales, what
they tell about different cultures, and how they are passed down. This week we
have examined the folktale Cinderella
across many cultures. On Monday we started with the American Version of Cinderella, not the Disney fairy tale,
but the original folk tale. On Tuesday we read Yeh-Shen (Asian version), Wednesday we read Little Burnt Face (Indian version), and on Thursday we read Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters (African
Version).
Over
the course of this week we have been looking at similarities and differences
between the folktales and determining what we can learn about cultural values
from each. Friday We will be go back to review our thoughts and observations of
these folktales and try to understand what they reveal about the culture in
which they were intended for.
I
must say that my mind has been blown at the attention the class has given to
these folktales. They are noticing the smallest details and examining these
details for meaning. One student pointed out that in each of the folktales
there is a different pet: Cinderella had a cat, Yeh-Shen had a goldfish, Little
Burnt Face had no pet, and in Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters there was a pet snake.
Another student pointed out that in many of the Asian stories she had read
there was almost always a goldfish. We gave this some thought and decided that
perhaps these pets or absence of a pet revealed values of that culture. Next
week we will look at many more folk tales and discuss the cultures behind these
folktales and how they compare or influence the American culture.
Homework
I
gave each child a reading log that is not due until Friday, April 11. As we continue our discussion on folk tales
and culture the kids may come home with questions in order to better understand
the traditions/culture of their family and folktales that have been passed down.
It has been a wonderful week
and I can’t wait to see what the next week has in store for the class and
myself! More brilliant ideas, I’m sure!
No comments:
Post a Comment