Dear Families,
WOW! This week really flew by!! We're getting used to these 5 day weeks I guess.:) The students had a great week with Fire Prevention, intro to Chorus, our field trip to Shelburne Farms, and lots of cool science!!
We are continuing to work on our stamina and engagement in reading. Next week I hope (key word - hope) to send students home with their own reading logs so that they can track themselves more closely. We've been using the reading they record on their goal sheets to reflect on their weekly reading. Each Friday students will be expected to complete a reading reflection so that they can focus on their reading goals and their reading growth. 
We officially started unit 1 in Bridges math. Students learned how to set up a problem string page and we focused on different strategies that can be used for solving multiplication problems. Some are: ratio table, number line, and area model. It seems as though many students have a decent grasp on their multiplication facts, but if you see a need at home, please support them in memorizing their facts.
In writing, we're continuing to collect entries in our writer's notebooks and to write in our dialogue journals. We'll move on to an opinion unit by October.
We officially started our science unit this week, focusing on Plant and Animal Structures and Function. We'll focus mostly on plants, but will also connect what we learn to animals and of course, biomes and specific animal adaptations. It is a fun unit!! We explored a bit of it with plants from the gardens at Shelburne Farms yesterday and got to get wet and dirty here at school today with plants from OUR gardens. The students were very engaged while dissecting and investigating plants from the garden. We tried to get specimens that had all parts (root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit, seed) and did careful observing of each part. It was so cool to see the variety of leaves, flowers, roots, and fruit! Students got really into it and we didn't want to stop (that's why they didn't do See Saw today....). Of course, we connect these structures to their function and think about how they help the organism survive, grow, behave, or reproduce. I wonder if you'll see your child dissecting plants from your garden at home?!?!
Today we also participated in our first community service activity together as we brought all the food you sent in for the food drive down to the Shelburne Food Shelf!! Thank you! What a great way for us to help our community and it's people in need. Speaking of, I will NOT be attending the Hike for Hunger tomorrow, but Vasanthi and some of her students (and her whole family) will be there if you plan to go.
And finally:
* check out the SeeSaw page for posts (from me) that show more about our work this week. Please let me know if you need help getting in.
* Next week is our Open House! Thursday 9/29 at 6 pm. Students should come to show you around our classroom and share some of their highlights so far. We'll have informational handouts for parents regarding curriculum.
That's enough for now. Keep in touch!!
