Can you believe that we are in 2019?  I hope everyone enjoyed the Holidays.  Now that the new year has begun, my intention is to start setting new goals for myself.  Every year I set out to accomplish my goals, and this year is no different.  The past month and a half I have had a lot of time to sit and reflect on what changes I need to make.  I have decided that my health is very important so I am going to work on eating healthier, exercising and take better care of myself (#selfcare).  I know we all start strong with our resolutions each year, but this year I am determined to do what I have set out to do.

                                                                   Fourth Grade News
First off I would like to say that I am so glad to be back in my classroom.  Being out for awhile I truly missed the students, the faculty and staff.  Now that I am back, things hopefully will get back on track.  It was a short week, therefore, everyone was able to ease back into our routine.

We are still reading James and the Giant Peach.
The children have been enjoying the book and many
great discussions are taking place.

We will be finishing up this week and move onto their
culminating project.

I also sent home this trimester's book project.  It is:
A New Cereal on the Shelf.  After reading their book,
the children will create a cereal based on what the book was
about.

The picture below gives you an idea of what the final
product will look like.  The handout I sent home explains
how to set it all up.  These will be due on March 15th.

Our writing in the next few weeks will be informational pieces.  The children will learn more about topics of their choice and some that I have already chosen.  We use Lucy Calkin's Units of Study as the foundation for our writing.  The children have Writer's Notebooks and take part in sacred writing time in which all we do is write. Our pencils do the talking during this time and is uninterrupted time.

These are some of the books the books that the children listened to during read aloud time for our #bookaday.  This month's theme is about Snow and Wintry Weather.

Fifth Grade News

The students have been introduced to their next Summit Project.  It is titled Different Perspectives.  I briefly discussed what will be involved and the students will dive in this week.  I opened up the lesson by showing them the image below.

 They were asked to study the image and think about what they saw.  After a while we opened up the discussion with what each one saw.  Most of the children saw a young woman and a few say an older woman.  What do you see?  I explained to the students that even though it is the same image, people see things differently.  The project includes learning vocabulary words, reading articles and watching videos.  All of this will lead to then conducting an interview with classmates about different views on where they stand on a particular topic.  

The children will also continue to read Crash.  We should be

done with it in the next week or so.  I will be alternating days with

reading the book and working on the Summit Platform.