End of Year Update
If you would like to discuss your child's progress before the last day of school, please let me know. I am available to discuss over the phone or to meet in person most days before or after school.We will have a class picnic next week and families are welcome to join. I will check the weather report to determine the best day.
Please bring in a plastic or reusable bag as students will be cleaning out their desks and hook area and bringing home school work, binders, duotangs, etc. throughout next week.
Literacy
Students are finalizing their unit on persuasive speeches as they examined the world around them and problems that needed to be addressed. They not only identified issues but imagined solutions on how our world could be better and wrote them in most convincing ways. These young citizens will no doubt become the change they want to see in the world!In reading we are wrapping up our novel study on 'Because of Winn Dixie' by Kate DiCamillo. Students have learned how to study characters deeply, investigate patterns that reveal deeper traits and motivations, and articulate evidence-based theories. They learned how readers use their theories to come up with predictions as they follow their character on a journey that takes the shape of a predictable story mountain, considering the big lessons that characters learn and how those lessons relate to the larger message a story conveys.
It is important for students to continue reading over the summer to maintain their literacy skills and to develop the habits of being a lifelong learner. Students are encouraged to visit the Aurora Public Library over the summer and to join the TD Summer Reading Program. The Summer Reading Club is completely free and rewards children with prizes for reading books. Please click here to find out more.
Math
In math we will also wrap up the extension and the development of ideas about data representation and analysis. Students were provided with multiple opportunities to represent data using bars and line plots with an emphasis on comparing relations between bars, interpreting line plots to examine frequencies using discrete categories and whole numbers, and examining data by analyzing its shape when graphed. The scales for the graphs were also extended to include fractions and scaled data. This is a very sophisticated math unit which that was partially filmed in our class that looks at transposing data by categories, measures, and frequencies and co-authored by Dr. Fosnot, Koeno Gravemeijer professor in Mathematics Education from the Freudenthal Institute of Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and Frans van Galen from the Science and Technology Education at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands.
