Friday, December 16, 2016

CC-3 Updates!

Chex Mix
Our Chex Mix making was a huge success.  As I write this blog post Friday morning, I'm excited about the sale!  A tremendous THANK YOU to all the families that donated supplies.  We made 18 double batches of mix, that is 432 cups of mix!  We had wonderful help from Tracy Phillips, Dave Christy and Monique Trepanier when it came to baking and bagging!  Students truly understood how their kindness will make a difference for Central Vermont children.

Dusting for Prints!
This week we've been finishing up our mystery unit.  On Wednesday, we did an exploration that involved using cocoa powder to dust for fingerprints.  Many of our students were very successful in seeing prints appear after dusting.  Please ask your child what he/she thought of in regard to this event.  We may have some future forensic scientists in our midst!  A positive outcome of this event was the fact our classroom smelled like a chocolate factory!
Mrs. Christy demonstrated the "dusting" process.

Literacy
This week we've working on reading skills associated with reading and sharing nonfiction text. Students learned a discussion protocol, called GoGoMo.  They did a great job reading an information book, deciding on key ideas, and then sharing their ideas with others.  Please ask your child to explain how GoGoMo works, it's a lot of fun!

In writing, we've been working on sentence structure, punctuation and neatness in our written work. Students have been improving their ability to write with complete sentences, making sure they have a subject and predicate.  We've been creating "lap book" resource guides for parts of speech.  So far we've added complete and fragmented sentences, common and proper nouns and plurals.  We'll be adding work with verbs and adjectives in the near future.

After break we'll be really concentrating on our informational writing unit.  This week students reviewed their pre-assessments and we talked about setting goals for this next unit.  Many students shared the fact that spelling and punctuation are key goals for them to work on.  As we tackle this next unit, students will be writing about something they are "experts" about.  It would be a great help if you could talk to your child and promote their thinking about what he/she truly knows a great deal about.  The possibilities are endless from raising puppies, to camping, sports, travel, collections they may have, a favorite activity, vacation spot, etc.  This is always a really fun unit to teach and students make amazing writing gains.

Upcoming

  • Monday 12/19 -Gifts for Giving-Students need to bring a bag or box to transport their gifts in.
  • Friday 12/23-K-3 Music concert at 1:45 p.m. in the EMES gym.  Students need to remember they will be playing their recorders.
  • Friday 12/23-Classroom Celebration right after the concert.  If you'd like to join us, you are welcome to!  Please let us know if you'd like to send in a goodie to share!
Have a great weekend, stay warm!  We anticipate a VERY BUSY week next week, so we'll send our best wishes for a wonderful holiday week today!  ENJOY the break with your kids!
Christine & Kathy

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