Weekly Wrap Up

We’ve been busy putting our new knowledge about fractions to work this week. The children have been working in small groups to create presentations on the iPads using PicCollage and Educreations. As soon as each group finishes their project it will be posted on here and on the student blogs. Please stop by your child’s blog, watch their video, and leave them a comment!  

You’ll notice something new on your child’s weekly progress report, a box giving their weekly multiplication and division math facts quiz scores. To help the children track their progress, improve, and know how close they’re coming to meeting the goal score, we’re now doing weekly timed quizzes. Each week I’ll report their scores to you. If your child had 90 or higher on their January multiplication and/or their January division tests they do not have to take the weekly quizzes for that operation. Once your child gets 3 scores of 90 or higher in a row on an operation for the weekly quizzes, they no longer have to take the quizzes. However, if they drop below 90 on their monthly quizzes, then they’ll start taking the weekly quizzes again. I know this might sound a little confusing, so if you have any questions please drop me a note or call.

We have a lot of birthdays coming up in late winter and spring. If you plan to send something to school with your child, please remember that we have food allergies in the room. My policy is that any food treats that come in need to be tree nut free and peanut free, as well as shellfish free. If you make them at home, they can't be made in/on equipment that might contain any trace of tree nuts or peanuts or shellfish. If you make them, please send me a note that they're allergen free so I can get the parental permission of the children with food allergies. If you buy them, please make sure I can see the ingredients labels on them. Also, if you buy them, the label shouldn't say they're made in a facility or on equipment that also processes the allergens due to cross contamination that can happen. I know this can be confusing, so as an alternate, non-food treats are always great.  Please contact me ahead of time if you plan to send something in.  Thanks!

A couple of reminders:

• Please sign your child’s behavior calendar at the end of each week. Students get Tiger Tickets for signatures.
• Have you looked in your child’s backpack lately? I sometimes notice food in their desks and lockers, you might want to check their bag if you haven’t in a while.  :)

Here's what we're learning about next week:

• Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop: Cross text synthesis while writing information books
• Math: Fractions
• Social Studies: Connecticut

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

Northeast Woodlands Native American Villages

Our Northeast Woodlands Native American Village Educreations are finished!  Enjoy!

Educreations Math

We've been learning how to use the iPad app, Educreations, to create math presentations to help us review topics we're learning about.  Here are two that were made this week:

Fraction App Smash

An app smash is when multiple apps are used to create a product. The Safari Scholars have been busy app smashing with the iPads to share their new knowledge about fractions. First they went on a treasure hunt around the building to find examples of fractions and take pictures with the camera app. Then they used Pic Collage and Educreations to create their show. Here's one of the many great products created!

Division with Educreations and Pic Collage

The Safari Scholars have been busy creating presentations to show their understanding of the concept of division. Using the iPad apps Pic Collage and Educreations, they worked during their center activity time in math rotations for about 15mn a day over 3-4 days. I'm so proud of their hard work with these presentations! Parents, hop over to your child's blog to leave a comment on their presentation.

Weekly Wrap Up

We are just about finished with our study of the Native Americans of the Northeast Woodlands. On Monday and Tuesday the children worked in groups to build 3-D villages. Then they each wrote a paragraph telling about the section of the village they helped build. Finally, the groups worked together to create an Educreation presentation telling about their village. Next week we’ll publish the presentations into their blogs. Be sure to stop by your child’s blog and comment on their presentation.

On Monday conference time forms will go home. If you are unable to make your conference please let me know as soon as possible. If you do not receive it, please email me or send a note in, and I’ll send another one home.

Next week is a review week in spelling. This means that there are 35 words on the list. Some of them are words that have already been used, others are words that follow the same patterns taught in units 7-11. On Monday we will pretest all 35 words. But, there will only be 20 on the Friday test.

Now that the cold weather seems to be settling in, please make sure your child is dressed appropriately. As long as the temperature is above 20 degrees, recess can be held outdoors.  If you want your child to wear boots outside, but not inside, feel free to send in something else for them to wear while inside. Also, please try to put names on jackets, hats, mittens, scarves, etc… It’s very easy for things to go missing this time of year, and having a name on it helps get it back to the right person.

Here's a look at what's coming up next week:

Reader’s Workshop: Main idea and supporting details
Writer’s Workshop: Information research and writing, and possessive nouns
Spelling: Unit 12 - Words home on Monday, test on Friday 
Math: Topics 5 and 6, Multiplication
Social Studies: Native Americans - Test

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

Nonfiction Text Features with Educreations

We've been reviewing nonfiction text features with our new reading unit of study on information books. The students worked in groups using the books in their book boxes to go on a treasure hunt for various text features. Then they created Educreations presentations with the iPads to show the text features and tell how they can help the reader. Enjoy!

These are also posted on the students' KidBlogs.

Arrays with Educreations

We are just two days into our unit on multiplication and the Safari Scholars are already using the Educreations iPad app to show their know knowledge of multiplication as repeated addition, and to show how an array can illustrate a multiplication sentence. I'm beaming with pride at these kids!

Please be patient, the presentations take a little bit after the kids start talking before you see their whiteboard writing start.

Feel free to also stop by the student blogs to see the arrays each one made using KidPix.

Kids Teach Subtraction Across Zeros

Third graders have become experts at understanding how to do three digit subtraction across zeros with regrouping. Here is an Educreations video that one group made on the iPad to teach others how to do it.

Place Value Presentations

Today the children learned how to use the Educreations app on the iPads. Eventually we'll use this app to teach how we solve problems in math. Today we used it to illustrate standard and expanded form for 6 digit numbers.