Newsletter: Wednesday, September 1

Hey Everyone! I hope the kids have been coming home with lots of exciting stories to share about the various projects and inquiries underway in the classroom. Some of my favorite moments of the day are those times when someone asks "Can I take this book home tonight?" or "Can I work on my story some more at home?" A couple days ago, one of the kids came in and wanted to tell us all about how she made circuits at home the night before using materials similar to what we used in the classroom to begin learning about electricity. Seriously, their curiosity and passion for learning fuels our day. Thanks so much for all you do at home to support this!

Here are some photos from our past week...

In writing, the kids recently finished writing their first third grade piece. 
These were small non-fiction books teaching us about something they already
know a good bit about and really love. 

Our focus while writing these books was to learn the importance of pre-writing notes
in helping to organize and stretch the information we want (and need) to share.

Each of their books has a Table of Contents and then three informational
pages. 

They worked on these for about a week before sharing them out with their classmates.

To share our writing, we went outside and paired up someone. After each person
read their book to their partner we swapped partners and started all over. 

Getting outside and spaced out made this possible.

The following day I helped the kids reflect on these pieces,
identifying what they felt they were already doing really well as a writer and 
what they thought they needed to work on in the future.

I was really proud of their effort. These first pieces will serve as a useful artifact when 
tracking progress over the course of the year.

In math we've been revisiting the computation with regrouping work we started last year.

We use base-ten blocks to help us build a strong(er) understanding of place value
while computing. We've also played a number of games together to review this skill.
On Friday the kids will have a quiz to see how they're progressing.

In science we launched our first inquiry of the year - electricity!

The kids have been sooooo excited. Almost all of what we're learning comes from challenges
 where they are tasked with figuring out how to make something work and then
reflecting afterward. 

They've built circuits, figured out how to wire switches to open and close the 
circuit as a means of turning motors on and off, and have experimented to find out
which materials are conductors and which are insulators.

They've also been sketching diagrams of their work to illustrate how the flow
of energy works within these circuits. They're doing such a fabulous job!

One last item I'd like to mention is classroom safety. We currently have about two children who wear their masks each day (all day), quite a few who bring masks but only occasionally put them on, and a handful who do not wear masks at all. Whatever choice your family has made for your child, please revisit this with them at home. I am not allowed to tell anyone to put on the mask they've brought from home. I'm not even allowed to give a child a mask if they ask for one (this has to be done in the health room). It's become increasingly difficult to keep them out of one another's personal space. There are many times throughout the day where I ask unmasked children who are less than a foot away from one another to return to their seats. This is going to make contact tracing a nightmare and result in large-scale quarantines if we wind up with a positive case in the classroom.  Please, please, please remind your kids of the importance of maintaining social distancing. And if you want them to wear their masks, remind them of this each morning. 

Thanks so much,

Chris