A Week of Learning
Fourth graders at work:

 The fourth graders are continuing their work on Informational Writing.  They are working on creating a brochure filled with facts about the topic they read about.


The children researched the topic by using books and the internet.  After they gathered the required information, they planned out what their brochure would include.

 The children gathered and organized what they wanted to
include and spent a few days putting it together.  The next step is to finalize what they would like their brochure to look like and begin to put it all together.

Many of the students collaborated with one another within their groups and took advice from their peers on how to set it all up.  The children were able to choose the topic they were interested in.  It's all about voice and choice.

Our Writer's Workshop is allowing for the students to have a choice in what they would like to read and write about.  It allows them to make choices about what they want to explore.

 Reading out loud to children is one of my favorite things to do during the day.

Our book a day board is filling up quickly with all of the books that have been read.  My goal is to get 180 books read. 

This week we welcomed our student teacher to my classroom.
Miss Lopez comes to us from Providence College and will be with us until April.

She has already dived right in and is following 4Z students to all of their classes.  The children have begun to develop a nice rapport with her.

 

Fifth graders have dived right in with their 2nd project of the year.  They are reading articles and holding discussions about different points of view.  Once they read the articles they choose a side and discuss the pros and cons of each topic.
There were some great discussions going on in the groups.

Here you can see how they are in groups and discussing the pros and cons of self driving cars. 


As I walked around the room, it was great hearing the reasons why they should or should not have cars drive themselves. I found that by taking a stand, they were vocal about their opinions and defended their choice.

Here, the students are discussing why they should offer school children healthy lunches. 
The children were able to defend their stand based on details from the article they read.

 On Friday the 3rd, 4th and 5th graders spent the day at Brown University watching the women's basketball team play against Yale.  There were lots of happy faces and so many of them enjoyed watching the game. 



The children loved holding up the sign. There was lots of cheering and dancing in the stands. 

Congratulations to the team for their win!

I hope that everyone enjoys the long weekend, even though the weather isn't that great. 

Thanks to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, for his fight for equal rights, we are all allowed the rights that make America what it is, a land of opportunity for all.