January News
It’s the start of the new year,
and with that comes student resolutions for 2016. We had a discussion about the
term “resolution” and then each student came up with a realistic resolution,
wrote it on a piece of paper, and then shared it with the class.
We began our social studies unit on
leaders in civil rights. This month marks the birthday (January 15) of Martin
Luther King, Jr., so Ms. J.-R. read a biography of his life to students, and
introduced students to a class collection of biographies of other civil rights
leaders like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Ruby Bridges, all available
for students to read.
Work continues on the World Cultures
and Traditions book—writing, reports, and art projects.
Students are learning about the
characteristics of non fiction prose, from information books to magazines.
Thus, begins our exploration of non fiction books, which will continue for a
couple of months.
On January 7 Mr. Negley brought
his wonderful portable planetarium, and set it up in the Mitchell School gym.
Most students had never visited a planetarium, so this was a surprising and
thrilling experience for most as Mr. Negley led them on a tour of the
re-created night sky with its constellations, meteors, the rising moon, and the
“star” of the show: Polaris, or, as it is more commonly known, the “north star”.
He told them the story of the Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman. He
emphasized the significance of the seasons (along with a visual enactment of
why we have seasons by showing the arc of the sun across the sky, and how the
axis of Earth relates to that angle in creating seasons) and the
fixed-in-the-sky North Star, and how and why slaves escaped north in winter and
were guided by the north star. We sang the song “Follow the Drinking Gourd”.
It was a very exciting
experience for everyone!
Students are showing their level
of mastery of basic addition and subtraction facts by doing speed tests of 30
problems in 2 minutes or less. We
will continue this speed with accuracy test periodically for the remainder of
the year. Regular practice with the fact triangles at home is key to succeeding
in school with the speed tests.
We are beginning Unit
V in EDM focusing on money—-counting and making change, adding and subtracting
10 and 100, and solving number stories.
The new year is off to a great
start!
