Newsletter: February 4th

Thanks to everyone who was able to join us for our Virtual Curriculum Night last week. As I mentioned in an email earlier today, the kids have books in their bookbags to read with you and then discuss via a "written conversation" - just like you all did during our Curriculum Night. These conversations are a great opportunity to support them into thinking more deeply about a text as well as to coach them through their attempts to write with clarity and conventions.

This week in Reading Workshop we launched an inquiry into biographies. Building off the books we've been reading about how people are mistreated for being themselves as well as books about how people have stood up to create positive changes in their communities, these biographies are an opportunity to learn about the lives of people we find both interesting and important. 

Soon the kids will select someone they want to research and write about. To prepare for this, we've been working together to research astronaut Ronald McNair. In just a couple days we uncovered more than 20 important facts about his life. Today we collaborated to write a book about him - each child writing their own page about a particular aspect of his life, work, and legacy.

To prepare for writing this class book, the kids worked in partnerships on Thursday to sort all of our research notes into categories that made sense to them. They came up with groupings such as: childhood, career, achievements, legacy, etc. One of the many cool things about looping is the opportunity to see how far the kids come over the course of two years. Projects such as this very much proves that point - these kids have grown in incredible ways to think both analytically and critically. I'm so proud of them!

And now an update on our mathematical studies from Mr. Grantham...

This week in math, we've continued to explore fractions and how they relate to the world around us. Using geometric pieces, we played several games that helped us understand how different pieces can equal one whole piece. For example, one of the questions we've been asking is "How many pieces of one-third would equal one whole?" 

One of the games that we've been playing to explore this idea is a match 'em up game. We split into partners and spin a spinner with different fraction amounts listed. The first person to fill up both columns wins! 

This week we only focused on pairing shapes that are the same size up. Soon, we'll start crafting some new skills that have us use different shapes and how the ones pictured can combine to make a whole.