General News
It’s a busy time around Delta Land! Monday we’ll head to the library for free-reading and hot cocoa/cider. Remind your Delta to bring a book that inspires some pleasure reading! Wednesday, we’ll head to the Bob Bullock Museum for a field trip to see the T. Rex exhibit (and watch a documentary on the IMAX screen!) The Epsilon class will join us, which will add to the fun! (Huge thank you to our parent volunteers!)
Reading/Writing Update
We were busy finishing up our creative writing pieces this week and learning the value of editing and peer editing. On Monday and Tuesday we took two days to finish up our creative fiction stories. On Wednesday we printed them out and spent time going over them, looking for spelling and grammar mistakes. You can often catch things you missed while typing when you take the time to print and edit with a paper and pen. We then passed our stories on to a classmate to do the same – other people can often catch things we missed. On Thursday we made final polishing touches to our stories, made front and back covers for publishing, and had fun sharing stories!
Math Update
We dove into tough topics in both classes this week: Year 1 kids are learning all about adding and subtracting mixed numbers. (I will email three videos that will help kids refresh if this skill feels tough. It involves a deep understanding of fraction concepts and a lot of steps! Speaking of, Ms. Amanda is hosting a fraction exploration after-school class next semester. This would be a great way to get some hands-on practice “seeing” fractions in action! Year 2 kids dove into the wonderful world of percentages. We practiced converting between fractions, decimals and percentages. We also started exploring how percentages relate to last week’s skill work (proportions) to help us solve for unknown amounts. Next week, we have big plans to make our own pie graphs that will help synthesize all the skills together in one big art project! Note: We’ll take our Quarter 2 ‘check-ins’ next week in both classes (most likely on Tuesday!)
Theme Update
In theme, we explored the wonderful world of fossils building on last week’s study of the fossil record. We then had a chance to make our own fossils, preserving an imprint of a special item from home using plaster and modeling clay. The week ended with an M&M lab helping students understand carbon dating and the half-life of atoms (and how this relates to dating fossils from so many years ago!) Finally, on Thursday we hosted a “Writer’s Workshop” to help kids prepare to turn in their research paper rough drafts (These are due on Monday!) Mr. Steve provided the Deltas with a sample essay, color coded to help them understand the elements they will create for their own papers: hooks, thesis statements, transition statements and conclusion. Students will access their papers via Google Classroom from home and we’ll keep an eye on them digitally to provide feedback and encouragement. Next week, we’re pumped to head out on our field trip to the Bob Bullock Museum to learn about the infamous T. Rex!
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