PA and TD for the Week of 12-12

Kindergarten TD will be introduced to a new reading strategy this week, one that their classmates will be learning the the weeks to come.  I will be explaining using context clues in a sentence to figure out what unknown words mean.  The K team calls this strategy "Tryin' Lion" and I'm doing the same.  We will play some games on the Smartboard using context clues, and I have some big books that will will be using to cover up key words in sentences. We will have to work together to determine a replacement word that makes sense.

First Grade TD will continue our work with Frindle by Andrew Clements.  Last week, we began writing 7 word summaries of each chapter as we read.  This is harder than you might think for the 1st graders, condensing an entire chapter of a book into exactly 7 words.  The group will continue to write summaries and we will examine how conflict leads to change in this novel.  For more books by this author, check out his website:  andrewclements.com

Second Grade TD will continue to research one of three natural disasters: lahars, tsunami, or sinkholes. The kids are working in pairs to find facts, record them, and then we will be learning about Google Slides.  The kids will be creating a presentation to share with the class.  We are using an great research tool in class, InstaGrok. Have your son or daughter show you how this search engine works and how it is different from/better than Google. 

3PA will spend our week on a theme scavenger hunt of sorts.  I have several cards with short literary passages that the kids will be reading to determine the theme of the text.  We will compare our themes and determine how best to capture the theme of the passage in a sentence. On Friday, the kids will be taking a theme assessment based on a Fable by Aesop. 

4PA will be exploring the Harlem Renaissance all week, mostly through the poetry of Langston Hughes.  The kids will spend a few days analyzing a poem called "Freedom's Plow" in teams of two.  By the end of the week, I hope to move the class onto laptops to explore two new links under "student resources" on the PA site.  My vision is to create a virtual gallery of the Harlem Renaissance on CoSpaces that captures the art, music, and poetry of this amazing time in American history. 

5PA will spend the week reading and researching the good and bad of GMO's in the food we eat.  There is a lot of reading we have to do to develop an understanding of both sides of this complex issue, and to develop an informed opinion that can be debated with the group.