Social Studies

Our scholars have been studying facts in our Australia books all week. They have learned amazing facts about the animals in the biomes of Australia. Did you know that there are three times as many sheep in Australia as people, a platypus is highly poisonous, koalas sleep about twenty hours a day, and there are over fifty species of kangaroos and wallabies? These are some of the extraordinary pieces of information our students have learned thus far!

Writing

Students were so excited to show off the items in their shoebox collections!  Our scholars were asked to make a decision on the best item in their own collection.  We first generated some ideas of how to judge fairly.  Students then learned to form an opinion on the best item in their collection and give reasons for their opinions.  They then added details to make their arguments more convincing.  Our scholars were so motivated to complete their writing and share it with their classmates! 

Reading

We continued with our Mem Fox author study this week in Reading Workshop.  We specifically focused on techniques such as rhyming and alliteration.  We also talked about memories, which is a theme in Mem Fox’s Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge.  Students brought in items or pictures of items to create a class memory quilt, which will be displayed in our classrooms.  

Important Dates:

January 18th- No School (MLK Day)