Seasons change with the scenery
Weaving time in a tapestry

I look around
Leaves are brown, now
And the sky is a hazy shade of winter

-Simon and Garfunfunkel

As December flies by and we prepare for the holidays, we have been discussing and reflecting on what winter means to us and how we like to spend the darkest days of the year. Lights, hot cocoa, and fun, cozy indoor activities seem to be the highlights. Middle Schoolers have not only been learning about the Winter Solstice and interpreting its importance in their own creative ways, but have also been studying Kwanzaa and its principles.

In reading:
As we read our “just-right” fiction books, Readers are envisioning parts with mental movies, reading aloud parts to bring characters alive, predicting and revisiting predictions, and noticing how characters change.

In Writing:
Writers continued their fiction writing this week. Writers are working on structure and character development, to create in-depth stories that their reader can connect to.
During centers, writers were also entered into a writing competition hosted by the South Carolina State Library Foundation! This writing contest encourages students to write a personal letter to an author, living or dead, from any genre, explaining how that author’s work changed their way of thinking about the world or themselves.
Here is the link for more details about the competition: https://www.readsc.org/letters-about-literature

In Math:
Fifth graders prepared for and took their End-of-Module 2 Assessment this week. We will be starting the beginning of Module 3: Addition and Subtraction of Fractions, next week and get a refresher on fractions, then jump right back in after Winter Break!

Sixth graders completed their mid-module assessment and corrections, we will be finishing this unit next week, and sixth grade students will take their end-of- module assessments on Thursday. This will set us up to dive right into Module 3: Rational Numbers when we come back from break!

Important Dates:
December 18th- Pajama Day/ Half day (please bring a pair of Pj’s to donate!)
December 21st-January 4th- Winter Break
January 5th- Students return to school!