We have been very busy in Room 303! From writing our realistic fiction drafts to working on having a deep understanding of the characters in our independent reading books, from investigating physical weathering in Science to having a strong understanding of place value and measurement conversions, we have put a lot of time and energy into all that we do!
Reading: We have continued our work with Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. A lot of our focus has been on the characters. We have had fantastic discussions on complicated characters (Judd in Shiloh is complicated because he is introduced to us as a rude and nasty person, but at the end of the story we have a sense that there is a compassionate side to him, however small it might be) and behavior patterns of characters (Rob in Tiger Rising often shrugs his shoulders showing that he reacts passively to a lot of situations.) Students have been working on identifying these ideas in their own independent reading. Ask your reader to share a pattern they noticed about a character in their book.
Writing: We are well into writing our drafts of realistic fiction stories. As we write these drafts we have focused on using other stories to influence our writing skills. We have talked about books that we have read together and what makes them great stories. Some of our time has been focused on writing strong leads, for example. When we want to write a strong lead, we can always look at our favorite books to see what another author did that worked so well! Ask your writer to share their lead for their realistic fiction story.
Math: We finished out second module (or unit) in math this week. The focus was on converting various measurements in the metric system. We use the metric system in this module as it aligns nicely with our base-10 number system. We have focused on base-10 a lot this year having taken a deep dive into place value addition and subtraction. A lot of the measurements have been, for example, 1 kilometer = 1,000 meters, 1 kilogram = 1,000 grams, 1,000 milliliters = 1 liter, 1,000 millimeters = 1 meter. When we understand these basic conversions, we can then convert measurements like this: 24kg 478g = 24,478g. Ask your student to convert 54L 43mL into milliliters. (It's 54,043mL!)
Reading: We have continued our work with Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. A lot of our focus has been on the characters. We have had fantastic discussions on complicated characters (Judd in Shiloh is complicated because he is introduced to us as a rude and nasty person, but at the end of the story we have a sense that there is a compassionate side to him, however small it might be) and behavior patterns of characters (Rob in Tiger Rising often shrugs his shoulders showing that he reacts passively to a lot of situations.) Students have been working on identifying these ideas in their own independent reading. Ask your reader to share a pattern they noticed about a character in their book.
Writing: We are well into writing our drafts of realistic fiction stories. As we write these drafts we have focused on using other stories to influence our writing skills. We have talked about books that we have read together and what makes them great stories. Some of our time has been focused on writing strong leads, for example. When we want to write a strong lead, we can always look at our favorite books to see what another author did that worked so well! Ask your writer to share their lead for their realistic fiction story.
Math: We finished out second module (or unit) in math this week. The focus was on converting various measurements in the metric system. We use the metric system in this module as it aligns nicely with our base-10 number system. We have focused on base-10 a lot this year having taken a deep dive into place value addition and subtraction. A lot of the measurements have been, for example, 1 kilometer = 1,000 meters, 1 kilogram = 1,000 grams, 1,000 milliliters = 1 liter, 1,000 millimeters = 1 meter. When we understand these basic conversions, we can then convert measurements like this: 24kg 478g = 24,478g. Ask your student to convert 54L 43mL into milliliters. (It's 54,043mL!)
Miscellaneous:
- The 74th Annual Whittier Pumpkin Festival is October 29th and 30th! Bring your real carved, decorated, dressed, or painted, pumpkin to the front lobby before school on the 29th or 30th. Be creative as possible! The pumpkins will be entered under one of four categories and then judged by Whittier staff on the 30th.Please contact Heidi Gawne (hgawne@op97.org) or Laurie Conley (lconley@op97.org) if you have any questions!
- Have you heard of Socktober? Socktober is a nationwide sock collection for homeless families. Student Council members are collecting NEW, WARM socks for the homeless in our area. Housing Forward (the Oak Park/River Forest Shelters) served 947 homeless people last year. We are trying to help them keep these homeless people warm this winter by donating socks. There are collection boxes at Whittier. Thank you!
