Newsletter: December 1, 2015

Dear Families,

I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving break with the kids. I suspected they might come back a little tired on Monday morning but they did not. They were ready to go. We now have three full weeks before leaving again for Winter Break.

Here's a rundown on what we are working on in the classroom right now.

Math
We are working on place value. We began this study by counting cubes and beans. We are now using the hundred chart to find patterns and create strategies for adding double-digit numbers. A lot of what we are doing will help the kids become more comfortable with mental math as well as support the traditional paper-and-pencil methods they will learn later in the school year.

We are also continuing our work with data sets. Most recently, the kids looked through all their reading logs from this school year and recorded the number of nights they have read, the number of books they have completed, the number of minutes they have read each night, and the types of books they have selected. We used statistical values such as minimum, maximum, median, and mode to make sense of this data. The photo below shows each of the kid's minimum amount of nightly reading over the first 65 days as well as their maximum amount of nightly reading. After calculating the median (the middle value in the whole set of numbers) and the mode (the value that came up most often), we discussed which of these four values best represents how much they read on a typical night. These are concepts we'll come back to many times over the next year-and-a-half.

Social Studies
To support our understanding of why CFI has a "Passing of the Cans", we have been reading picture books about hunger and homelessness. I asked the kids what they already knew about either of these topics. Most talked about homeless people as "building their homes out of stuff like weeds and boxes and stuff." Certainly, there are homeless people on the streets who do have to create makeshift structures to protect themselves from the elements but I introduced the fact that many homeless people live with family members or in shelters or with friends. In fact, our school district has a whole lot of students who are homeless despite the fact their classmates would probably never expect it. Most recently, we're beginning to discuss what conditions might lead to someone being without a home or enough money.

Reading
As mentioned above, we've been studying our reading logs from the first third of the school year to reflect on our reading practices. The kids are taking notice of how often they read each night, the sorts of books they are selecting to read, the rate at which they are finishing these books, and so on. We'll use this self-study to set goals for ourselves.

We are also preparing to begin a novel study. The book will be Sarah, Plain and Tall, the first of a series of five books by author Patricia MacLachlan. Each day I will read aloud to the kids from the book while they follow along in their own copies, stopping to talk about the story along the way. Our focus will be to concentrate on specific comprehension strategies that support understanding. Of course, there is time each day for reading independently from their self-selected books as well.

Writing
We just finished an author study of Cynthia Rylant and are now working to draft pieces that reflect our learning from this inquiry. The kids' work will show how they can describe a setting as well as make use of craft moves such as similes, describing how a character feels, repeating lines, and stretching out small ideas. The kids are not expected to use each and every one of the craft moves we found during our study but they are supposed to use at least two. This process helps them learn how to learn - to use a piece of literature they enjoy to not only identify what they like about it but use those very same moves in their own writing.

Science
We are taking a small break from science right now. When we return from Winter Break we will launch in inquiry into weather.

That's it. If anyone is interested in visiting the classroom or even volunteering from time to time (parents, grandparents, etc), please let me know. Our door is always open.

Chris