I sincerely hope you had a beautiful holiday week of thanks with your family! I know the hiatus was greatly appreciated in my family, and we very much enjoyed our time together and with extended family!
As we return from the holiday, we will hit the ground running! There are only 18 school days between us and the end of the first semester, and we have a lot of work to do to be ready. In reading workshop, we will continue our study of nonfiction reading. As students prepare to select a topic of personal interest for in-depth study and research, we will focus on the characteristics of texts that make them more difficult than others, the challenges that complex texts may pose for readers. As readers begin to recognize why exactly these texts are more challenging, they ready themselves to pull from a bank of strategies for tackling these complexities. This week, we'll organize our bank of strategies and practice identifying exactly what it is that makes some texts more difficult than others. We'll also discuss how to expertly summarize these challenging, complex texts. In writing workshop, writers will begin preparations for their second literary essay. On this occasion, each writer will choose the text on which they will focus their thesis. We'll begin by reflecting on texts we've read, brainstorming, and writing to grow deeper ideas. Then, we'll focus our thinking specifically on how characters respond to the trouble in their stories in order to develop an even stronger thesis statement. Much of the week, writers will be revisiting texts again and again, mining the concrete details for grand interpretations. In language arts, we will wrap up our study of dependent clauses and move into our next unit of word study. Keep your eyes peeled for a new set of word cards to come home this week! In other news, we have a fantastic field trip coming up on December 13th! The fifth grade will be going to see the new movie, Wonder. Wonder is based on an award-winning novel by Raquel J. Palacio. If your child has not yet read this book, please help them read it BEFORE the 13th. The book is a quick read! Readers LOVE it and usually binge read it cover to cover within only a few days. Since such a large portion of our student population has already read the book, we will not be reading it as a class, but we have a few copies available in the media center and classrooms. Please support your child in obtaining a copy of the book and reading it quickly, returning it to the source as quickly as possible for the next reader to enjoy. This week we will also launch an important holiday project. As the Chets Creek tree is assembled this week, and our class ornaments are hung alongside our schoolmates' ornaments, we will begin gathering donations of new and gently used stuffed animals as our Season of Giving project. These stuffed animals will be donated to the Jacksonville Beach Fire Department. Whenever children are involved in emergency situations, it can be very frightening! As a special comfort to them, the firefighters always carry a few "friends" on their truck to help these children through frightening experiences. If your house is like mine, you probably have a few stuffed animals that were "have to haves" one day, but quickly forgotten in the following weeks. If so, please consider donating one or two of these gently-used animals to our service drive this year.
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4th GradeAccept no limits. Archives
March 2020
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