Readers Theater/Family Dance Students performed their Readers Theater this week. It was fun for them to illustrate their characters, learn what it is like to speak in front of others, and perform for another class. The students worked very hard at not only learning their parts, but also helping their peers read. I’ll post the video of the performance of If I ran the Zoo soon!
The Family Dance was a big success!!!! Thank you to everyone who came out and a special thanks to all the volunteers who helped make it happen.

South America

This was our last week of our South America studies. The kids have learned more about the culture, food, and landmarks. We celebrated our last week by making guacamole and salsa. The students also learned how to weave on a traditional loom. If you would like to continue this project at home, here is an easy way to make a loom.

SPRING BREAK!!!!! Spring break! I hope everyone is ready for some sunshine and relaxation. Over spring break please don’t forget to read to or with your child every night. Have students work on sight words, phonics skills, and math facts. Here are some great on-line resources:
Sight Words
Reading
Phonics
JiJi Math
Math Games

Readers Workshop

In readers workshop this week we continued our fiction unit, talking more about main idea and key details. Reading groups work at their specific levels to answer questions about the text. Many guided reading groups focused on new vocabulary and how that is important to figuring out what the story is about. Make sure when your reading with your child you stop and ask them what new words might mean.

Writers Workshop

In writers workshopthis week students worked on developing a more in-depth character for the fiction series. Students worked on developing their characters inside characteristics such as, like/dislikes, thoughts/feelings, and traits. Then they wrote adventures to match their characters traits. For example if their character is brave, trying to make sure and create an adventure where their character had to display bravery. Finally to finish up their stories they worked on adding supporting characters to help their main character.

Ms. Ooton’s Corner Even with spring break right around the corner, the students of room 204 were very focused learners this week! One lesson that stands out to me in particular was when students learned to write adventures for their characters. The students were eager to write and before I knew it, many of them had already written more than one story! I’m so excited to see how students’ series turn out as they finish up drafting their fiction this week

Taste of Leschi! We had such a great night at the Taste of Leschi! Our Equity Team worked hard to put together a Leschi cultural cookbook and a wonderful mix of all the rich food from many of our cultures represented at Leschi. We even had a video of students from different classes which showed them speaking about their culture and what they know about it! Make sure you take a look at the cookbook! I saw some really tasty looking recipes in there that may be fun to try at home with your students!

Work Time: Just to share some amazing, hard, independent works students have been doing in class!!
Readers Theater

Students have been doing a great job on their Readers Theater parts. Wow have they grown as readers! Please help them keep practicing at home, not only reader the words, but speaking in a loud clear voice. We have been talking about slowing down so your audience can hear your parts and really read with expression. We will be having a performance soon and let you know the dates to that performance.

Readers Workshop In readers last week we continued our fiction unit talking about cause and effect. The students listened to the story I ran a zoo! By Dr. Seuss. Students were assigned parts and partners to read with or help them with their reading script. We are having a fun time changing it up with Reader’s Theatre and seeing how much our readers have grown this year! Please continue reading with your child at home every night!

In readers this week we continued our fiction unit talking more about main and idea and key details. A big goal is to use texted based evidence to support the main idea. Students had to highlight the details they used to retell the main idea. When you at home reading this is an important skill you can practice with your student. Have them go back in the book and look at the evidence to retell the main idea.

Writers Workshop

In writers last week students edited and published their fiction stories! They were able to share their great writing with the class. We also started our series unit. Writers explored different series books such as Frog and Toad and Henry and Mudge. They learned about how the characters usually stay the same, but the setting and adventures are different in each series. They developed their own character and wrote details describing their characters outside traits. Ask your child what outside traits their character has.

In writers this week we wrote a story using the characters, settings, adventures, problem and solutions and ending that we have been learning about for our fiction writing! We added beautiful language and sparkle words to our writing. We talked about giving our characters dialogue and action words to our writing Next week we will be learning about how to write a series. We will take a closer look at some famous series such as Henry and Mudge, Frog and Toad, and Piggy and Elephant to help inspire us!

Ms. Ooton’s Corner Last week was packed with excitement but I have to say one of my main highlights was teaching a lesson on galaxies as part of Room 204's stars unit. Students explored the different types of galaxies and worked to great their own artistic representation of each type using chalk. A couple of the students were so excited to know more about this topic that they exclaimed, "I want to be a scientist!" and continued to ask more questions about outer space throughout the week. I'm looking forward to seeing students expand their scientific investigational skills as we begin our fabric science unit in the upcoming

This week the students in room 204 did a LOT of writing – over an hour each day! I think Mrs. Castiglia and I are both so impressed by how much the students’ stamina has grown over the course of a year. It was also fantastic to see students challenge themselves over several days to expand on skills they have been learning in our fiction writing unit to begin to create a series. These ideas are also translating into students’ reading – a group of 7 students or so was immersed in the “Jack and Annie” series during library and they were all able to talk about what makes that series a series. Ask your student what they are planning for their series!

Student of the Week

Solomon Solomon has really been an author these past few weeks! He has worked very hard on his fiction stories. When it is time to write he gets started right away and has dreamed up some great characters! He has really worked hard this week choosing challenging works. He learned the 100 board and loves work on that! He loves reading in the library and is a great game player with his peers! Way to go!!!

Student of the Week Everyone! This is the last week before spring break and it is important to recognize how much our class has grown as readers, writers, mathematicians, sciences, and independent learners. Please take some time this week to recognize your child’s achievements. Overall as a class we have worked hard to be kinds, welcoming, and respectful to everyone. There is so much great learning going on everyday, I know Ms. Ooton and I feels so proud to be a part of it. Way to go EvERYONE!!