A Productive Week

This week, some students started reading groups.  Students in Weegar/Schoolcraft cores will be in mixed groups for reading.  Some students will read primarily with Ms. Schoolcraft, while others will read primarily with Ms. Weegar.  Reading strategies continue to focus on vocabulary, comparing and contrasting, and nonfiction text features.  Students in groups are exploring a variety of authentic shorter texts - both fiction and nonfiction.

Students in third grade math are wrapping up their first study of multiplication.  Students have had much time to practice learned strategies during workplaces and by engaging in a variety of “problem strings” involving multiplication strategies.  This week fourth graders have continued to multiply two digit by two digit numbers.  Students are learning to use doubling and halving strategies in large arrays.  Students are also using what they know about single digit numbers and multiples of ten to calculate large products.  

In Science, students examined relatedness of identical twins, the differences between inherited and acquired characteristics, and learned that a scientific explanation actually is a claim that is supported by evidence.  A scaffolded compare-contrast scientific writing piece was completed by students, independently, as well.  Finally, students worked in pairs to make a claim and collect evidence to support whether a dolphin is more closely related to a tiger or a shark.  Our results, conclusion  and new learning were all pretty exciting and interesting! 

In writing, authors continue to “stretch out” the liveliness of their stories by writing scenes.  Students are focusing on character development and got tips from RJ Palacio, the author of Wonder, by reading her remarks on her website.  Morning work challenges (DLR - daily language review) included concepts of antonyms, “guide words” and alphabetical order and syllabication.  

In other news: Booster cells are still being awarded for students who follow adult directions the first time!  Coat Drive:  CVU is partnering with the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program in a coat drive - please bring in your gently used winter wear and leaving it in the box in the WCS lobby until 11/21/14.  Finally, FYI ¾ Chorus is cancelled for Wednesday, 11/19.

Harlie earned the Bucketfiller Award and John was voted SMART student of the week!