I hope everyone had a restful and enjoyable holiday season. I also want to wish you all a happy 2014! I am excited to start the new year in "The Kourt Room." On Monday we will start our day by discussing our new year's goals. Each child will come up with a school related goal and a personal related goal. The children will not only come up with the goal but they will have to develop an action plan to ensure that their goal is achieved. For homework on Monday, I am asking the children to bring their goal home to share with you and to get the sheet signed so that I know they discussed their goal with you. I look forward to working with all of you in 2014. Here is an update of what to expect this week!
In writing we will continue working on our argumentative essay writing unit. Before break the children drafted an essay debating whether or not chocolate milk should be served in school cafeterias. This week we will finish revising these essays before we begin a new essay topic. This week we will talk about plagiarism, paraphrasing, and how to properly use quotations when using someone else's research. This work will help prepare the children when writing research papers in Middle School.
We have a very important week in reading this week. We are starting a brand new unit - non-fiction. In this unit we will study the purpose of non-fiction features (features around the text), analyze text structures of non-fiction (how non-fiction text is written), discuss author's purpose, study texts theme, and the children will learn to synthesize throughout non-fiction texts. This new unit is guaranteed to make each child a better non-fiction reader!! This week we will begin by discussing the different strategies we use to read fiction books verses non-fiction texts.
Also in reading this week we will begin literature circle book groups. Each child will be put into a small group and collaboratively choose a book that is just right for everyone in the group. As you can imagine this is a often a very difficult task. Luckily I have many books for the children to choose from!! The group will receive an assignment, this assignment will have specific pages to read and a couple written assignments. At least once a week, this small group of children will meet with me to discuss what they have read and to review their assignment. The purpose of our literature circle groups are the genuine conversations we will have together about great books! I learn so much about each child as a reader through the use of literature circle book groups!
There will be no spelling this week and the children will not have a vocab quiz this week. In social studies we will continue with our United States history unit.
I also want to thank everyone for my class gift. Thank you for the Buffalo Bills sweatshirt (with my last name and the number 5 on it - for 5th grade teacher of course), the very generous gift card to "I love Books", and the gift card to Chiles. I truly appreciate your generosity and thoughtfulness!!
Do not hesitate to contact me with any questions! Have a great week!
Andrew
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