First+Quarter



September 24, 2009

Another two weeks have flown by and we have, once again, had a lot of fun! Some of the highlights of the last two weeks have included a book talk with our librarian, Mrs. Krembs, another visit with our kinder buddies and an upper elementary school assembly, but the favorite has to be the Class Connections coffee. It was terrific to see so many parents here and I know the childrne thought it was great fun! The children have continued to enjoy our morning meetings and we have learned a few more new games, some designed just for fun and others designed to review or practice skills, such as Bizz Buzz. Ask your child to teach you how to play that game as a way of building familiarity with the multiples of a number!

Over the last two weeks our keyboarding practice routine has become well-established. Most mornings, half of the class practices their keyboarding at [] while the other half works with me on word work. Your child can practice at home as well simply by visiting the website. In word work we reviewed how to use a matrix to generate word sums and we learned how to apply some organizing principles to making word webs. The children also spent some time starting to define some common affixes and continued to look for prefixes and suffixes we can add to our collection. A question we are exploring at the moment is whether or not il- is a prefix. To help us answer this question, I have asked the children to be on the lookout for words that might use this prefix. Finally, the children had a substitute teacher a few times this week as I attended meetings with a visiting consultant. The substitute told me that the class was wonderfully well-behaved and hard-working! As a result, the class has earned the last two letters they needed to earn their first class reward and we will celebrate next Tuesday by sharing ice cream sundaes!

In math the children have reviewed a number of algorithms for adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing whole numbers and decimals. They continued to practice reading and writing large numbers and numbers to the thousandths place and they had a lot more practice with estimating and making magnitude estimates. I also introduced another routine that we will use for the rest of the year; Problem of the Week. In this routine, the children will be given a word problem each week to work with. Each night they will be asked to complete one step of the problem solving process and to write about their thinking in depth. For the first ten weeks I will be introducing the students to a specific problem solving strategies and after that they will be asked to select the strategy they feel is most effective for the given problem. This week we targeted the strategy of making a table. Finally, the children continued to build their concept of data and landmark numbers through two activities in which they collected data, then found minimums, medians, means, modes and maximums.

In Reading Workshop we finished our read aloud of __No Talking__ and the children have decided that this is an author well worth reading; many of the members of the class are now reading other books by Andrew Clements. After a focus lesson on analyzing characters, the children wrote response letters about their reading in which they analyzed some of the characters from their independent reading books. This week the students all completed the first part of the DRA (Developmental Reading Assessment), a survey in which they list some of the books they are reading and reflect a bit on what they do well as readers and what they would like to get better at doing. A few of the students have started the next part of this assessment and I will be completing these assessments with all of the students over the next few weeks.

The children are approaching the end of our first writing unit and writer’s workshop time in the last two weeks have been targeted at the skills of writing strong endings, revising and editing. All of the children have selected a story they wish to bring through the full writing process to publish and share with the class. They have worked to revise their own writing and participated in a peer editing conference. Armed with feedback from that conference, they were able to make changes to their first drafts and are now in the process of word processing their stories. Next week the children will each have an opportunity to participate in a revising conference with Mrs. Ellis or myself so that they can make further revisions before publishing their final drafts.



Science has continued to be the favorite time of the day for many of the children. We have conducted many hands-on investigations with simple machines. After using a tractor model, rubber bans for tires and a paper “sled” loaded with hex nuts to figure out that traction can help a vehicle travel further and friction will slow it down, the children experimented with a number of variables to determine how the tractor could most efficiently move the load the farthest distance. The children also built gear models to discover that gears can increase force or speed and they can also be used to change the direction of the force driving the gears. Finally, they experimented with different ways of using pulleys to raise a load and learned that single pulleys can be used to change the direction of the force or to decrease the force required to move the load, but it cannot do both. If they need to change the direction of the force and decrease the force, they need to use a compound pulley! The children also had a chance to go into a great website and play some games that helped them to recognize simple machines in compound machines that they use every day. You can visit this website at []

Finally, I would like to remind you all parents are invited to join us for two special events next week!


 * Tuesday, September 29th at 12:30pm** Middle Eastern Influences in Art and Dance celebration will take place at the Arab Tent in the courtyard just outside of the MS art room. If you enter the building at the Main Entrance and head straight down the hall, then turn right just past the seating area.


 * Wednesday, September 30th at 1:00pm** Terry Fox Run in the stadium. Parents are welcome to sit in the stand and watch, but we encourage you to come with your running shoes and run or walk with your child!

September 11, 2009

It’s incredible to think that we are now at the end of our first month of school! The big news this week has been about H1N1 and we have all had our temperatures checked! Over the last two weeks the children have finished writing up their goals and set up their portfolios to start collecting work samples. We had our first grade level assembly and all of the children learned a little bit more about what to expect this year!

We also started our typing practice routine this week. Each morning, half of the class practices their keyboarding skills on a web site called Dance Mat Typing while the other half does word work or handwriting practice. By next week we will have constructed keyboard covers so that kids can't peek! Once a child demonstrates the ability to type over 40 words per minute (we have three already!), they will be able to use this time to play math skill games or to work on word-processing some of their writing work.

Our word work this week focused on identifying commonly used prefixes and suffixes and reviewing basic word structure. The children had a first look at how to “test” affixes by looking for several examples and analyzing their word sums, and they started to find definitions for their collected prefixes. The last big event was the class representative elections. This morning we had four students give speeches that were very well planned, prepared and presented. I congratulate all of the children who tooj the risk of running and we are happy to announce that the students who will represent our class this semester are Rachel Lee and Evan Chen.

In math we completed our first unit with lessons on finding square roots and factoring larger numbers. The class reviewed for the test by correcting their pretests and I was very pleased with the results of the unit test. This week we started our second unit and the focus will be on understanding place value and estimation and computation with whole numbers and decimals. We also continued to practice multiplication facts through tournaments in fact wars and factor captor, and the children were tested once again on their fact speed. The goal for the end of the first quarter is to be able to solve at least 20 facts per minute.

In reading workshop the children completed the first of what will be many literature response letters. Each week for the next several weeks we will explore a strategy that good readers use and the children will then be asked to apply that strategy in their independent reading. In their response letters, they will write a brief summary of what they have read, then a response paragraph highlighting how they have used the featured strategy in their reading. We also continued to read In the Year of the Boar and this week we looked at the way in which the author uses similes to help create vivid images. The children hunted for similes in the book and then selected one to illustrate. To help them make the connection between reading and writing, each child then wrote some original similes drawn from observations in their own neighborhoods. Next week we will look at ways in which they can incorporate similes into their personal narrative writing. We also continued to share the book __No Talking__ and this has spurred some interesting discussions about stereotyping! In writing workshop we have moved from gathering ideas to drafting and conferring. The children participated in several lessons designed to help them think about the qualities of good writing and how they could apply these qualities in their own writing. Some examples include using first person, including a character’s inner thoughts or using dialogue. The children also learned that good writers set goals before they write and they are starting to think about what their own goals as writers might be. Most of the class is now starting to draft their first story and, in preparation for their next step, we practiced some conferring skills this week. The children learned that their job as a peer in a writing conference is to provide specific feedback on what the writer can do to make their piece more understandable and interesting; they are focusing on the ideas being expressed and the ways in which they are organized, rather than on conventions of spelling, punctuation or grammar. This week we had a few lessons on how to revise to bring out the “heart of the story”. These lessons expose the children to the idea that their stories often carry deeper meaning and they can make them more powerful by teasing out these hidden messages. Finally, the children helped to generate a list of reasons why they might start a new paragraph in their writing and I will be working with them on proper paragraphing as they move forward with their drafts.

We have completed investigations involving friction and its impact on work, the invention of the wheel and how a wheel helps to reduce the amount of force required to do a job. In these activities, the children used a spring scale to measure the amount of force it takes to pull a brink a given distance and then experimented with how the impact of different surfaces, such as wax paper and sand paper. We also investigated how friction and traction effect a vehicle hauling a heavy load by using model tractors to haul a brick, first without “tires” made of rubber bands, and then with them. The children learned that traction actually helps a vehicle and that, without it, they cannot do their work very efficiently.



A few reminders: ** The kids should have brought home their scholastic book order forms yesterday. If you want to order books, please have your child bring the forms and money back on Wednesday.

Our class connections coffee will take place on Tuesday, September 15 from 10-11 am in our classroom.

Mark your calendars for September 29th at 12:30. Parents are invited to join the class in their performing arts class to see what they have learned during their unit on Arabic influences!


 * From the PE teachers: **
 * ALL ISB X-COUNTRY MEET @ISB **

All students in Grade 2-5 are invited to participate in an all ISB X-Country meet at ISB next Friday afternoon, 18th September at the ISB Stadium. It will take place during regular ASA time, 3.30-4.40 and anyone is able to catch the ASA buses back home again. Students will be divided in to age groups based on their age at September 1st and will run a course similar to that of Terry Fox. All accumulated Kilometers will also count towards the Great Wall Runner’s totals. All parents are invited to cheer along your child. Medals will be awarded to the top 3 runners in each age group. For more information please contact the ESPE Department on ext. 2639. Yours in running, ESPE

August 28, 2009 We have now successfully completed our first two weeks full weeks and things are going very well so far! Over the last two weeks we have spent a good amount of time on establishing classroom rules and routines and on learning strategies for being organized. The children have completed several activities designed to get them started on setting their goals for this year. Each child will be asked to set three goals this year; one personal, one academic and one that helps them build one of the learning essentials. On Monday we joined Mrs. Onken’s class to learn more about our five learning essentials: Responsibility, respect, integrity, cooperation and empathy. The children discussed these characteristics in groups and then illustrated what each one might look like in their daily lives. On Tuesday and Wednesday the children started to brainstorm and narrow down ideas for their academic and personal goals. You might like to talk to your child about the goals they are thinking about for this year. The week ended with two terrifc events. The first was a visit to the library, where our new librarian read a great stoy to the class and the class participated in a scavenger hunt designed to orient them to the library. The second event was our first meeting with 1C, our reading buddy class. The children each read two picture books to their buddy before taking them out to the OLE for some playtome on the climbing ropes. The kids did a wonderful job and were expecially pleased when 1C presented us with a gift- a brand new microscope kit that we will set up in a science center in our room!



We have made good progress in our first math unit. The children have reviewed the meaning of factors, prime, composite and arrays. They have practiced finding factors through a game called Factor Captor and discovered that selecting prime numbers is a great strategy for getting ahead in the game! In grade 5 we expect children to solidify their basic fact knowledge and to that end they have completed fact testing to identify any basic multiplication facts they still do not know fluently. Next week we will start regular speed testing of facts and your child should be practicing at home to increase speed. They might like to practice using a card called fact war that can be played with a regular deck of cards- ask them to teach it to you! I also introduced a morning routine this week that we will continue all your. Every two or three days the children complete a short set of computation practice problems to ensure they remember and are able to accurately complete basic operations with whole numbers, decimals and fractions. By selecting specific skills to target, such as subtracting across zeroes, I can identify those children who need additional help and practice to master the skill.

Our reading workshop blocks have been packed with activity! The children have learned how to record their reading in their reader’s notebooks and each child has had a chance to read aloud for me and to learn what they need to do to improve their oral reading. The class is reading a shared novel, __In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson__, by Bette Bao Lord. This is a wonderful story about a Chinese girl who moves to America. Lessons based on this book in the last two weeks have included how to buzz with a partner, how to make connections, how to visualize events to deepen understanding and how to write a literature response letter. I have also started to read aloud to the class from Andrew Clements’ __No Talking__. Through this read aloud we are discussing aspects of the author’s style such as the use of repeated phrases and the use of third person narrative. Finally, the children have learned how to use independent reading time to grab a book, relax and read silently for up to thirty minutes. In preparation for independent reading we have completed focus lessons on how to select just right books, how to identify the genre of the book and the class has organized and sorted our library into categories that they feel will help them find good books.

We kicked off our writing workshop this week with several lessons on how authors get ideas for their writing. The children have made memory maps, shared stories orally with their partners about people who have had an impact on their lives and brainstormed transitional times in their lives that spark strong feelings and memories. Some of the children have already found an idea that inspires them and have started to draft their first personal narrative. We launched our word work last week with a review of the parts of speech, then the children got to practice using the terms and finding words by completing Mad Libs. Later in the week the children learned to use a thesaurus to help them find powerful adjectives to write about themselves. This week we reviewed the basic structure of words and the definitions of base, prefixes, suffixes and affixes. The children then started a collection of affixes that we will add to all year. Mrs. Ellis, one of our learning support teachers, has been working with us during workshop and will continue to do so this year.

To help me get an idea of what the children know about our first science unit we went to the computer lab on Monday and the class was introduced to a program called Inspiration that allows them to web their ideas easily. At the end of the unit the children will repeat this activity and we will be able to see how their understanding of simple machines has grown!

August 14

Here is a fist look at our wonderful class! I will send an e-mail with a link every two weeks as this page is updated.



August 13

Dear Parents,

Welcome to our class wiki. I will post a newsletter here every two weeks, along with pictures, video clips and samples of student work! Below is a message from the swimming coach for those of you whose children are interested in trying out for the swim team.

Towels will be provided ||
 * Grades 3-5 || Calling all competitive swimmers 
 * Pre-register: ** Monday and Tuesday August 17/18- anytime.
 * Swimg Tryouts: **Wednesday, Thursday, August 19/20th from __3:30-4:30pm__ (both days required) ||
 * Bring: || swim suit, goggles, cap (optional)
 * Recommended ability level: || As this is a competitive swim team, swimmers will be expected to be able to swim 50 meters of all four strokes- freestyle, backstroke, breast stroke, butterfly, with good technique. ||

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