A Great Week!

We have another exciting week ahead of us in "The Kourt Room." I hope to see you at Tuesday's learning luncheon - the children will share their literature circle books and their cursive writing essays.  If we have time, we will also play a game.  We hope to see you there!  Here are a couple things to look forward to this week:

In writing, the children have been gathering facts on the great cursive writing debate amongst schools in America.  This week the children are choosing their stance, writing their thesis statement, and will begin writing their essay.  I am excited to see all of the children's research and good thinking finally come into essay form.  (While I am on the topic or cursive writing, many children have asked me for a practice packet so that they can practice their cursive writing.  I will send a packet home with anyone interested to work on at home at their leisure.)

In reading, we are continuing our non-fiction unit by focusing on text structures.  Some examples of text structures include: definition, description, analysis, sequence, and comparison. In class we will read short texts in which the children will need to identify the different text structures.  We will  continue working in reading workshop where the children will read their literature circle and independent books.  There will be spelling and vocabulary this week.

In social studies we have continued our unit on America history.  We have focused on how America was built after the Revolutionary War.  Within this topic we studied The United States Constitution.  The children have learned the branches of government and our Bill of Rights.  We will have a quiz on the branches of government on Thursday.

Don't forget report cards are available on BC at home this Friday.  Look for the mid year AIMS Web testing reports to be sent home later this week or early next week.

I hope to see you at our learning luncheon on Tuesday!

Thanks,
Andrew