This week we had a band concert performance. It was so much fun seeing the older students perform with their wind instruments and percussion instruments. The students informed us all that they have been practicing since October. WOW! That's a long time to learn and practice. It let us realize that "practice really does make us better." I say "better," and not "perfect," because truly there is no perfection. We all must strive to just be the best we can be. Effort is the only important aspect. The students all enjoyed listening to the band. Mr. Jocelyn even complimented the 3rd- 5th graders for being an excellent audience. In the classroom we learned so much. In Math:
Important Events: Please come and join us for a celebration of the student's hard work during their informational writing unit. When: Tuesday, April 2nd 8:20- 8:50 Where: Room 327 We hope to see you all there!
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This week we accomplished a lot. The students all did a wonderful job at presenting during their Spring Conferences too. It was a joy to see their excitement about their learning growth. While presenting students used a packet which informed their families of their learning. Students discussed what they were proud of and what they wanted to work on to strengthen for the rest of the year. Self-assessment is a wonderful tool to really think about your own learning. Students were asked to rate their own hard work and all students were reflective thinkers. Using such tools helps students focus on "growth mindset," concepts and understand that "with effort "I" can accomplish many things!" Here are a few things we learned/discussed this week. . . MATH:
Sample Sentence Starters: I think _________ because _________. I'd like to add onto that idea __________. I agree with that idea because __________. What do you mean by _________. Can you explain _________. CLICK HERE FOR HELPFUL MATH STRATEGIES THAT OUR MATH CURRICULUM USES . . . https://franklinroom27.weebly.com/homework.html LITERACY:
WRITING:
SOCIAL STUDIES:
IMPORTANT EVENTS: Sunday, March 24th- Chez Vous Roller Rink, from 2-4 PM. Franklin's Family Day. Tuesday, April 2nd- Author's Celebration for Information Writing, 8:20 AM Wednesday, April 3rd - Suzy Kline author of the "Horrible Harry" series, Author Visit. Thursday, April 4th- ELA MCAS part 1 Friday, April 5th- ELA MCAS part 2 RECORDER HELPERS:
This week we did a lot of learning. Here is one highlight from the week: We started reading a passage from MCAS about Benjamin Franklin. We worked on answering multiple choice questions and also worked on how to answer an open response. Students worked really hard on this. Here are a few other things we learned about: Math:
Literacy:
Writing:
Social Studies:
Shout out to some of our students. They were mentioned in the local newspaper. Here is a photo of them playing in the snow! (Jamie and Ciaran) They were having "snow much" fun! ( SO much fun...) Overall, we had a super week. Students were focused and productive. I think they were mostly excited because we had beautiful weather this week. Learning in the classroom has been exciting with all of our hands on learning work. Allowing students to work in pairs or groups is great because it gives students authentic learning experiences. It also just makes it enjoyable for students too. They get so excited and dive deeper into their learning when they can discuss their thinking with their friends. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend. See you all Monday. FYI- For your information: If you are practicing your recorder here is a reference to use. Here are the notes for F = do and also G= do Use the songs belong to reference where "do" is on the musical staff. NOTICES: NOTICES:
Also, a reminder that we will having student-led conferences this week. Please remember to bring your child as they will be leading the conference. In addition, this Thursday, March 21 is an early release day with a 12:30 dismissal. FAMILIES OF NEWTON AND BOSTON FRANKLIN STUDENTS ARE MEETING UP March 24, (Sunday) from 2-4 p.m. come join us in Boston and Roller Skate. F.A.M.E. is hosting an event at Chez Vous Roller Skating in Dorchester. It is $5 per person (vouchers available) and this includes admission and skates. Students, teachers, and families are all welcome to attend. 11 Rhoades St, Dorchester Center, MA 02124 (Address) Warmly, Room 327 Teachers This week we only had four days of school. Monday was a SNOW DAY! Then, the students came back on Tuesday refreshed. This week we ended our Geometry Unit in Math and started our Fractions Unit. We also furthered our learning about Pilgrims. Additionally, we recently confirmed our date for our field trip to the Pilmoth Plantation. . . It will be on Wednesday, May 29th, 2019! We will send out information regarding this trip soon. Also, this Monday will be Dress Like Your Favorite Character Day! Students may dress up if they would like, however, this is optional. We will also have our next all school meeting on Monday. Important dates: Monday, March 11: Dress Like Your Favorite Character Day and All School Meeting March 18th- 29th: Spring Conferences. These conferences will be student led. Thursday, March 21: Early Release for Students at 12:30 Sunday, March 24: Franklin's Family Day at Chez Vouz Roller Rink, 2-4 PM Wednesday, May 29: Field Trip Pilmoth Plantation Math:
Social Studies:
Literacy:
ACADEMICS
This week we came back from February break and the students were well rested. We didn't get to have our Understanding our Differences program because of the snow delay this week, but we should be able to reschedule this soon. However, Laura Ingalls Wilder from the Creative Arts and Sciences program did come to present her act. She performed an act that described the lifestyle of Americans moving west during the westward expansion around the 1830s. In Literacy/Social Studies
In Writing
In Word Work
In Math
In Specials
ACADEMIC ACCOMPLISHMENTS: This week we did a lot of learning. In Literacy, book groups met to discuss more information about the Wampanoags. Students are really becoming experts about the Wampanoags. They have gathered so much information over this unit of study. Their hard work and focus is unquestionably paying off. During Word Work students also continued learning more about contractions such as: You're = you are Don't = do not Shouldn't = should not We even had a "check in" to see our learning growth. We decided to make this learning experience even MORE FUN by asking students to go on a scavenger hunt in their own books. When they read their independent books later on in the day, students searched for contractions in their own texts! It was really exciting to see the lists they accumulated. . . many students found at least 10 or more contractions. In Writer's Workshop, students continued to write their informational text on the laptops. Starting their writing with a topic sentence and then continuing further with details and transition words is what we are currently working on. It was easy to do once our planning stage was complete. Before typing students used graphic organizers to gather their ideas and organize their ideas into sections. Doing this allows the reader to understand the writers craft. In Social Studies, we also learned about the different stereotypes that some people might believe are true about Wampanoags and Native Americans. Students watched a slide show created by the teachers which had images of people on them. Each photo had people dressed in what we might call "current day" clothing and some photos had people dressed in what we might call "Native American" attire. Students were given a green and red card. They voted by raising their card in the air as the slides went by with their colored card choice. Green meant that they believed the person was Native American. Red meant that they believed this person was not Native American. It was interesting to hear the class discuss why they believed the person being shown was or was not a Native American. They were able to explain characteristics about the person and they used their prior knowledge about Native Americans to provide evidence to support these claims. Some responses included describing their clothing, skin color, and hair color. Students were able to use their reasoning skills that they have been learning about throughout the year to help them support their reasons with evidence and examples. It was also great to see the conversations these opinions brought to the table of learning. Example: "Just because the person is wearing a Red Sox hat does that mean he/she can not be a Native American?" Students learned at the end of the lesson that ALL of the photos were people that identified as Native American! Students realized that to be Native American doesn't mean you have to LOOK or ACT a certain way. You can have ancestors that were Native American which may not reflect your outer appearance. The best way to know if someone is Native American is to ask them! "Do you identify as Native American?" In Math, we started off our lessons with something called a "quick image." Students were shown an image that flashed on the screen for a few seconds. Then, they were asked to redraw what they remembered on their whiteboards. It was impressive to see the students create strategies to remember the images. Some saw these images as shapes in certain patterns but others found other artistic and creative ways to engage with the images. I remember some students saying an image looked like a "take-out container folded open." If you look below you'll see the image. Once drawn completely, the image would have a square in the middle and four triangles around it. That DOES look like a take-out container folded open. Another student mentioned that the image below looked like a 3D chair. If you look closely you can see that the squares on the bottom are the base of the chair, the triangles in the middle is where you sit, and the squares on the top is where you rest your back. Math is always fun in 327. We also continued to learn more about AREA and PERIMETER. Here are a few student exemplars: CLASS UPDATES/NEWS: -This week we earned a "cash in" for earning all 20 stars. -This week students also showed a lot of engagement by raising their hands during lessons and actively participating. -This week students also silenced themselves upon hearing the chime in the classroom. -This week we earned 2 stars in LIBRARY, MUSIC, and PE. These are all essential since it helps us transitions quicker and learn more! I was impressed. GREAT JOB ROOM 327 "Team work makes the DREAM WORK." SHOUT OUTS/THANK YOUS: Shouts outs also to all the students for bringing in Valentines for their friends and teachers. Thank you. Thanks to any student or parent that surprised the teachers with flowers on Valentine's Day as well. We very much appreciate your kindness. Also, thanks to Ray, his family, and grandmother for painting such a wonderful painting for the classroom. Here is one example of one of Ray's grandmother's art pieces (Below). She made one for all the teachers in the classroom! Here is the one Ms. Merrell received. Saying thank you for the "small" accomplishments in life really brings us joy. . . Always remember to appreciate kindness. Like we are learning each day in class, a simple thank you can really put a smile on someone else's face. Spread the joy. MR. JOCEYLN/MR. WONG: This week Mr. Joceyln acknowledged our CLASSROOM over the intercom on Friday afternoon for having an amazingly productive P.E. class. The students were so excited to hear their classroom honored for excellence. Mr. Wong let him know about our class time and how we worked together to run laps and tally points. Learning can and should be fun. When we allow students to learn, move, think, and play we can motivate them to challenge each other in exciting ways. This is something we do everyday in our academic classroom setting, but merging academic learning throughout the specials truly shows that learning merges throughout the subjects. Students during this lesson challenged each other to a game of multiplication. One student rolled dice and then multiplied their two factors together. Then, the next student did the same thing. The student with the higher product proceeded to the next level on the "pyramid." The other student would then run a lap around the gym and tally his/her points on the large class whiteboard and then he/she would start the pyramid levels over again. There are five stages until the top of the pyramid. The student that arrived at the top of the pyramid was able to write his/her initials on the whiteboard. It was so much fun seeing the kids challenge each other but get excited for MATH at the same time. Seeing their competitive side was rewarding. It just let us teachers know that they were having a great time. We also had some parents come to visit us during P.E. It was really great having you all there to experience our learning. I bet you were impressed by how fast some of our kids were multiplying in their heads. (I know I was impressed!) I also bet you were exhausted after all the laps YOU ran too. "Thanks for exercising your brains and bodies with us all." - Rm. 327 (3MD) Here are some photos of the class in action. We also had an ALL SCHOOL MEETING this week. During all school meeting we honored Black History Month. Some of our own students participated in the slide show. Some of these individuals were famous inventors and others were artists. Students at Franklin know that they are listened to, loved, and heard. We respect everyone no matter their backgrounds or beliefs. Culture is embraced and accepted! It is wonderful when we can share our identities with others. During the all school meeting our classroom was ALSO acknowledged.
Franklin the Falcon visits classrooms to see what we are learning and doing. When he visited our classroom he saw us responding to the chime. (Ask your child about Franklin. . . I am sure they can share more. . .) This week we had a lot of fun together learning. Students were excited to share what they learned during Literacy, Math, Writing, Social Studies, and Specials. We also earned many stars this week! I can't believe how well we are working together as a team. Students have been really responsive to meeting our challenge to raise their hands ONCE they hear the chime in our room. Once the chime rings, students stop what they are doing, raise their hand, and put their eyes on the teacher. We also have been working on talking about respecting all students and differences. We did something fun this week too during morning meeting. Instead of just asking friends "what's the news" to see what is going on in their lives we asked something specific. We asked "what's your highlight?" This allowed students to specifically share ONE things that was really great this week. A few student's shared: -This week we earned stars in Art and Music. . . -This week I liked what we did in Art. (drawing using scaled colors and building structures) Even on one of our rain days we didn't lose our HOPE. We decided to take a few of the kids outside that really wanted to go out during recess. The others stayed inside to play board games and other activities. It was awesome to see the boys create their own football game and include all of their peers! They were so happy to enjoy the rain even though some others may have thought it was too wet to have fun! The girls that went outside made up their own game too. It looks like they had some sort of spinning activity! I'll have to check in with them to see if there's a specific name for this game. . . We saw the glass half full and not half empty. . . We had a blast outside during this "typical" gloomy day. In Literacy/Word Work, we learned our first UPPERCASE cursive letters. Students thought it was interesting that some uppercase letters do require you to lift your pen. The letters H being one of these letters! Reading groups have also been continuing. Learning about the Wampanoag's has been really fun for the students. Many have commented about how different it was for the kids back then. "I can't believe the boys had to hunt when they were so young. .. " As mentioned from one of our books titled "The Wampanoag" by Kevin Cunningham and Peter Benoit (A true Scholastic book) it states, "Boys learned to hunt and fish at a young age. Around age two, they began to shoot a bow" . . . "During the summer, boys were sent to camp in the maize fields to keep the birds away and pull weeds." Page 24. During Math, students began to learn more about perimeter and area. Finding the perimeter means to measure around the outside. Finding the area means to measure how much space it being taken up on the inside of an object or space. Here's a great visual on what the differences between the two are: During Social Studies, students also drew pictures of what the Wampanoag's Wetu homes looked like vs. what their homes look like now. Wetu's were a seasonal home for the Wampanoag's . These homes were dome shaped buildings common in this area of the Northeast. In writing, we planned our writing for our informational pieces. Students chose to write about topics they feel they are interested about. Some students decided to write about things such as football or soccer. Others decided to write about their passion to draw or sketch. Sorting these ideas into categories was our challenge this week.
This Friday was also the 100th day of school! How exciting. Students thought it was so much fun to complete a few activities creating new words using phrases such as "ONE HUNDREDTH DAY." This week we earned 2 stars in Library and 1 star in P.E. We also will have a "cash in" reward day on Monday! We will be able to play a game in the gym! In the classroom during math and measured items in our room. We used rulers and yardsticks. We even explored measuring using inches and centimeters. During Literary and Writers Workshop we practiced sharing in our reading groups and also practiced writing open response questions. In our reading groups we share and discuss the text. We learn about ways to find evidence to support our reasons. In Social Studies we studied artifacts from the Wampanoags. We made guesses about what we thought their artifacts might have been used for and then we learned what the actual usages of each item was. Some of their items are similar to things we use and some were different. During cursive we finished ALL of our letters. This means that we can write any word in cursive. What an accomplishment! (Students: Keep practicing your letters and always know to look at the board as a reference!) Maybe you can read my quotes below now? Try it. Students are so excited about school that they are jumping for joy! It is finally February! Here are other photos from the week. . .
This week we learned . . . During Literacy, students started their new reading groups about the Wampanoag Native America Tribe. During Writing, students thought about small moment ideas and also filled out a sheet about things they are "experts" in. This will help us find topics to write about during our workshop time. ( I am an expert at baseball.... soccer... art.... singing... reading...) In Math, students worked more on word problems to find the differences between numbers. Students either chose to add up to find the difference between numbers or they used subtraction. 76 + ____ = 82 82 - 76 = _____ During Music, students played the recorder. Many students are completing their blue belts. However, if students are still working on other colors that is okay! Please ask Ms. J to work on your belt with you if you'd like extra time. All belts are posted here on this site. Scroll down!
During Library, this week we earned 3 stars. We were excellent listeners and we had a great lesson. We even used the iPads and checked out books afterward. During P.E., we did a lot of exercise. Students completed different stations to monitor their heart rates as they completed each course. Many students were able to get their heart rates up as high as 120! We earned 1 star! Ms. Coppola also shared with us some NEWS! She is having another baby who will arrive this July 2019. She created a scavenger hunt for the kids to find out the gender. Guess what? IT'S A GIRL! Congratulations Ms. Coppola! Ms. Phillips our Art teacher ALSO had wonderful news to share this week. She delivered her baby this week on 1/24/19. Her baby's name is Amelia! Congratulations to Ms. Phillips as well! |
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