Posted by kavery508 | Posted in Uncategorized | Posted on December 10, 2018
Report cards will be coming home next week. A few notes about grading: Gone are the days of letter grades, and the system now works a little differently. A “3” is Achieving the standard, and that is similar to an “A” grade. A “2” means students are making continuous progress and/or can do it some of the time, or with help. A “4” is rare: it means students are working a grade level above grade 2 benchmarks. A “1” is even rarer: should any student have been heading there, we would have communicated it well before now (and no one is)!
To be achieving on this term’s report card, students should be reading on level 20K, and reading fluently while comprehending text on whatever level they may be at. In writing they should be able to write complete sentences; to show evidence of writing opinion and informative pieces; to tell a story about one event from their lives with a beginning, middle, and end in a clear manner; and to write with spaces, correct upper/lowercase letters, correct punctuation, and mostly correct spelling. In math, they should have passed math facts level 10; they should be able to make sense of and solve problems in daily work and on tests; and they should be able to accurately add and subtract 3-digit numbers with regrouping.
Winter’s on its way! Our classroom is in need of bottles of hand sanitizer to keep us germ free. This is especially important because there is no sink in our room for students to wash our hands. Please send in a big bottle or two, and thank you.
Our work with opinion writing is paying off! We are learning to state opinions, give reasons for them, and explain with examples. Here are some from: 1) Shreya, on why we shouldn’t litter; 2) Abrar, on why we should have summer vacations; 3) Yash, on why Christmas is the best holiday; and 4) Veer, on why we should have recess every day: 1) If people keep littering it might pollute. For example, if people keep littering it could block water or houses. 2) We need a break from all that learning. With summer vacation our brains need to process all the learning we have done. 3) There’s a chance you can see Santa. For example, Santa comes at night so you get out of bed early, and sneak up on Santa. And that could be lots of fun. 4) We need to let go of energy. If they don’t have recess, they will be moving, and won’t be focused. Awesome stuff!
In math this week, students will be taught the basics of division. Just like multiplication was all about adding equal groups, at this introductory level they should understand division as splitting things into equal groups. Think about that while looking at the picture below:
Notice how it calls for creating a given number of groups with a set number of objects in each group. One way to divide, therefore, is to minus groups of 4 from the whole. Hence, 12 – 4 – 4 – 4 = 0. Students will be taught to try out this strategy, as well as others like “dealing” out objects into groups like you would do with playing cards (one in this group, then one in that group; two in this group, and two in that group; etc.). Like with multiplication, there is no expectation that kids work without objects or pictures to perform operations.
Our science focus this term is on air and weather! In lots of hands-on lessons, students will learn to: ask questions and make claims; design investigations to test them; collect and analyze data; and draw conclusions. This week, students will engage in observations and investigations designed to get them thinking and wondering about air and water. And a quick web search will present you with lots of kid-friendly sites such as these, which we will use in class:
http://eo.ucar.edu/webweather/
http://www.weatherwizkids.com/
Kids investigating and explaining what it means to divide:
