Career Day

The 2^nd Annual Career Day was AMAZING!  We are so lucky to have such a fantastic community of parents surrounding our village!  Kids learned about X-rays, play writing and producing, and running a day care today.  THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR COMING TO OUR CLASSROOM!  I loved seeing how excited kids were and LOVED hearing them talk about everything afterward. 

Please ask your kids what they learned today!

There are so many interesting jobs in the world and it's a treat to hear about some of them!

I LOVE It When They Come Back!

Every year I tell my kids that there is a little known Michigan law that requires them to visit me.  Kids who come back to visit is one of the best parts of my job.  This young man was in my first class at Haisley (that’s 20 years ago!).  He’s 27 (I taught 2^nd grade back then!).  He visits me from time to time and it’s THE BEST THING EVER.  I hope I’ll see your kids as they get older too.  I miss them when they leave me and LOVE it when they come back! 

Math –Unit 7

We started unit 7 this week in math.  On Tuesday, we worked on measuring capacity and they learned a drawing that will help them remember the conversions.  It’s something I still use!  I encouraged them to write it down when they are taking a test, to help them solve questions that may be difficult for them.  We also started discussing multiplying fractions and practiced it in our journal pages and as a whole class.  Kids really need to know their facts!  Please make sure your child is practicing if they don’t know them automatically.  Ten minutes of practice a day is enough!  They just need to do it over and over in order to have them come automatically. 

Writing – RACES

We have been writing machines!  We  are working really hard to understand the various parts to include in our writing.  They have great input and it has been fun reading short essays together.  We continue to add what we’ve written as a class on our anchor charts into our Reader’s Notebooks so kids are able to use them as a reference.  RACES is our latest strategy and it is something that can be used throughout their schooling.  R - Restate the question.  A – Answer the question.  C – Cite text evidence.  E – Explain the evidence.  S – Summarize your information. 

Seesaw

Out of My Mind and Reading Out Loud

Make sure you check out what they are doing on Seesaw!  They wrote wonderful reviews about our last book Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper.  I absolutely love reading books with your kids.  We have so much fun discussing what’s happening, and talking about the complexity of the characters and how they change over the course of the book…there’s nothing I love more!  I encourage you to take the time to read out loud to them.  It’s something that can be easily lost during the busy times in our lives, but it’s such a wonderful thing to do, and they LOVE IT. 

They are currently working on their next Seesaw assignment and will be reading part of their reading group book out loud.  I am so impressed with how far they have all come this year.  They SOUND WONDERFUL!  It has been fun hearing them record themselves and I am eager to listen to everyone’s recording in their entirety.  Enjoy!