Hopscotch Around the World
/This week we started a new reading routine. At the end of Treasured Reading each day, our readers are encouraged to put a book in their backpack to take home for the evening. Then at pickup time, students pull these books out of the backpacks to snag a few extra minutes of individual reading time. Students are invited to take these books home and read them to family members or on their own. We hope this new routine will encourage readers to sneak a few extra minutes of reading into their days and give families an idea of what students are reading at school. When you find yourself waiting for an appointment or stuck in traffic, please encourage your child to pull out his/her book and start reading. We are striving to create the habits of lifelong readers. Students should plan to bring these books to and from school each day when possible. This week we are wrapping up our unit on bees. We learned about some different types of Oregon bees today. We also watched a video of a honeybee hive and observed some of our classroom mason bees in action. We continued working on our honeybee art project too. Last week when we brought out chalk, students immediately began creating hopscotch courses. This week we introduced the book Hopscotch Around the World. We are exploring some different hopscotch games from around the world. Today we learned about how play Pele, which originated in Aruba. We used GoogleEarth to learn more about Aruba. In writer’s workshop this week we are discussing the elements of a story. Students are using a graphic organizer to plan out a story that contains a setting, characters, a problem, and resolution, and main events. During classroom choice time our engineers have been designing interesting structures out of our small wooden planks. In math we are perfecting our ability to tell time down to the minute. Please invite your child to read analog clocks when you come across them.
