Happy Friday!

I have so much enjoyed being back with the students this week. There's lots to tell you about, so here goes!

Math: I am incredibly impressed with the progress we are making in our understanding of and strategies for double digit multiplication!  The students are using place value and also their multiples of 10 to efficiently multiply. Here are 3 beautiful examples for 16 X 16:

These 3 strategies are so much more efficient than skip counting, and pave the way for multiplying with larger numbers. I am taking my time to make sure everyone is comfortable with this before moving on -- although my guest teacher did a wonderful job moving the kids forward! 

Reading: We have been reading nonfiction books since after Thanksgiving and will continue with that until mid-January. So far, we have learned how to choose a book and make a connection to it, how to commit to learning from it, and how to preview it so you get a good understanding of how it is laid out before you dive in. We have also thought about what messages our brains give us when we are learning new information (such as "Wow!" or "Really?" or even "Eww, gross!") When we notice the messages, we are able to decide which information to write down in our notebooks. Students are reading, learning and taking notes. Many of them prefer fiction, but such is life!

Writing:  The students have all planned their expert books and they have started drafting. We used a table of contents to do our planning (similar to the "outlines" we used when we were in school) and a mini table of contents to plan what goes in each chapter. We are getting the basics written now, and then we will begin learning how to elaborate next week. I love this unit as I think the structured method really helps kids learn to organize their thoughts as they write.

Word Study: Before vacation we learned about all the various long vowel patterns for each vowel. The week I was gone, the kids played games with those same vowel patterns on Spelling City. This week we learned about using Y as a vowel. Next week we move into learning about r-controlled vowels and how to use them to help us decode. Good stuff!

That's it for academics!

Here are a few other bits of information:

Thank you to those who have already sent in conference forms or been in touch with me about them. Please remember to get those from your children and get them back to me by 12/22.

Thank you also for your generosity with crafting materials. We are excited to have our Maker Space next Friday and the following Monday. I miss the days when I could ask you to come in and help! We chose names today, and we'll see how good the class can be at keeping secrets! We also made a list of what each student likes, so their peers can think about what to make them. The list is on the Bitmoji classroom in case the students want to access it over the weekend as they think about what to make. All the making will happen here in the classroom, but they can certainly plan at home!

We had visits from both Mrs. Graf and Nurse Lindsay this week. Mrs. Graf came in to talk to us about the appropriate ways to use the CHAT feature on our chromebooks. She explained to the class that they should not chat anything to anyone that they wouldn't say to them in person, and she asked all the students to tell an adult if they witness anything unkind on chat. I also encouraged them to ask YOU before they get on chat with a friend. It is a good tool, but we want to keep our eye on it to make sure they are using it appropriately.  Nurse Lindsay came in to remind us all about the importance of keeping our distance and wearing our masks. As the pandemic drags on, this gets harder and harder for the kids. I feel like I spend so much of my day policing them, and that is hard for all of us. We are all doing our best, and that includes them!

This week we only added 2 new words to our class dictionary. The words are embellish and oblivious. Try using those around your kitchen table!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.