It was wonderful to have a full week back at school.  The students were ready to learn and we accomplished a lot of material this week.  Along with our learning we also had a several fun events.  On Tuesday several ninth graders came our classroom to read their storybooks that they created in their History class for a final project.  The high school students did a wonderful job of relating to the third graders and our students loved hearing them read.  On Friday we also had a lot of fun playing a Math money game in the morning with Mrs. DeZwaan’s class and then having our writing celebration with them in the afternoon.  There are several pictures posted on the Smugmug site in the January folder if you want to check it out. It was a very busy but fun week.  

Here are more details about our academics:

Reading: The past several weeks we have changed things up a bit from our normal reading workshop routine and we decided to have some fun with a fairy tale unit. Your children did a wonderful job identifying the elements of fairy tales as well as recounting the story by identifying the beginning, middle, and end.  We also learned about point of view and that we often have different points of view about what really happened.  We read several different versions of traditional fairy tales and looked at the stories from the point of view of other characters in the story.

Next week we start our reading unit on Nonfiction.

Writing: We have finished our 2nd personal narrative and the children did such an amazing job with this.  We worked very hard on making them more powerful than the first one we wrote back in September.  On Friday we celebrated by sharing our writing with friends from Mrs. DeZwaan's class.  Here are some pictures from that:

Math:  We have been working diligently with place value this week, especially by making drawings to ensure we understand the ones, tens, hundreds, and thousands.  As we move forward into multi-digit addition and subtraction understanding these drawings will be crucial.  We also focused on rounding to the nearest hundred.  I did assess the students on their math facts for addition, subtraction, and multiplication facts as well.  The students are making huge gains in their computation of their facts!

Bible:  We have been learning about Isaac, Rebekah, and their sons this week.  We studied the chapters in the Bible where Jacob and Esau were born, how Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of stew, and how Jacob tricked his father into giving him the blessing meant for Esau.  The students engaged in great conversation about how lies and deceit can ruin relationships.  We are seeing how God’s covenant promises are going to continue through Jacob.  

Social Studies:  We have been learning about the economy of Michigan.  We studied natural, human and capital resources and how they are used to produce goods and services.  We also learned about entrepreneurs like Henry Ford and focused on terms like scarcity and opportunity cost.

Reminders:

·            No School on Monday due to Records Day.

·            Our Wacky Wednesday is wacky hair day this coming week.

·            Report Cards will come home on Friday.  Please return the large envelope they are sent home in so we can reuse them again. 

·            The I AMS are due on January 30.

·            Reading Minutes are due on Monday.

Have a wonderful weekend--Mrs. Wyma and Mrs. Stielstra