Newsletter 23.09.16

Good Afternoon,

A few quick notes for you from the Chameleon class.  

The week has flown by and we’ve worked hard the entire time. I know quite a few people have felt ill this week but luckily this seems to be dying down.

Pupils were able to take books out of the school library this week, I encouraged children to take at least one English book and one German book, however they could take up to three books of each language out.  

This week has felt like a very writers workshop focused week. Pupils have been perfecting the skill of staying on task and writing for the entire independent writing time. As well as this I introduced a structure for writers to work through whenever they start a new writing project. This begins with developing their ideas, followed by pre-writing by planning their main character and drawing a story arc and then finally they begin to draft. That is as far as we are going with the writing process so far and we will not be starting to revise for a few more weeks. Pupils have taken this on well and I feel it gives them more direction whilst writing.

In math this week pupils completed the second check in quiz for the place value unit and both the first and second came home. Please look at these and then send them back into school with your child, if you haven’t done so already.  We began to work through the addition pathway which seems to be running very smoothly, children have now understood the process of the pathways and I’m beginning to see high levels of independence from most pupils.

Here is an overview of the areas of study we will focus on during the coming week:

English:

This week in writers workshop we will be developing the idea of ‘Show don’t tell’, by this I mean that when children are writing they will not simply tell me how a character is feeling they will describe what they are doing or how they appear so imply their feeling. This is a tough skill but one that will greatly improve a child’s writing if they can master it.

Pupils will begin to work on guided reading groups this week as well as develop a more consistent attitude to reading. I will be assigning reading partners to the class, this will give them a buddy in the class who is a similar level to themselves, with their partner they will talk about the books they are reading and even develop their ability to read aloud. 

Math:

We are well underway with the addition pathway and we will be continuing to work on that this week. Pupils will receive mini lessons as the unit goes on and will ultimately be able to add numbers up to 10 000 using a formal written method. 

Science:

We completed the science check in about the different states within Germany this week, all children did incredibly well and no one scored lower than 80%. We began to look the 7 continents of the world, this leads towards our new topic of How My Country Impacts The World. In the next few weeks we will be looking at Germany and comparing it to a number of different countries in relation of a wide variety of topics. 

Humanities:

Pupils will think about the idea of a growth mindset and think about how having this can help them in their everyday life.

Art:

Children really enjoyed studying minimalist artist this week and they look forward to creating some minimalist art next week. This will be created through a simple collage method. Children will use their creativity to plan and compose whatever kind of minimalist art they want, from a landscape to an abstract collection of shapes. 

German:

Liebe Eltern der Chamäleon-Klasse,

diese Woche haben wir die Arbeit mit dem Wochenplan begonnen. Die Schwerpunktthemen bildeten die Merkmale der Nomen sowie die Lernwörter mit silbentrennendem h.  Verpflichtend waren die Aufgaben 1 und 2 zu erledigen. Die Schüler haben ausreichend Zeit erhalten, um diese Aufgaben in der Schule zu bearbeiten. Dennoch haben einige Schüler ihre Zeit nicht genutzt und müssen die verbleibenden Aufgaben am Wochenende nacharbeiten.

Am Freitag, den 7. Oktober, schreiben wir die 1. Klassenarbeit. Folgende Themenbereiche werden abgeprüft:

·        Wortfelder: Oberbegriffe/Unterbegriffe

·        Genaues und verstehendes Lesen

·        Merkmale von Nomen

·        Pronomen

·        Arbeit mit dem Wörterbuch

Im Anhang finden Sie eine Übungsklausur, die beispielhaft mögliche Aufgabentypen zeigt. Bitte beachten Sie, dass die Arbeit mit dem Wörterbuch sowie die Pronomen erst nächste Woche eingeführt werden.

Herzliche Grüße

Agnes Fojcik

Sports:

Last week we ensured all students ran for 8 minutes without stopping. This week we will be pushing it to 10 minutes.

We will continue to work on our character strength ofperseverance by working towards running at a steady pace for 10 minutes straight.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Sincerely,

Mario Civico and the entire Chameleon team.

Chameleon Newsletter 16.09.16

Good Afternoon,

A few quick notes for you from the Chameleon class.  

The third week of the school year has come to an end, it started with our parent evening that, I feel, was a great success. Thank you to all the parents who were able to attend. During this time we also nominated Mrs Wellens as a new parent representative, joining Mrs Bühler in her current role. There was some uncertainty whether this would be permitted, however after checking with the leadership team, I found that this is allowed. 

We’ve had some wonderful readers workshop sessions and I have now completed all the reading assessments for children in the class, these will help me to group children for specific guided reading sessions that will mostly be held by Mrs Petschick. As well as that all of us are now able to effectively retell a story in large chronological steps. I will be asking pupils to take home their reading records this weekend and keep track of when they read, this can be English or German. We will be looking at their reading habit on Monday during the session.

In writers workshop children developed two effective ways to plan their stories before they start writing. One being creating believable characters who have realistic strengths and flaws, the other is understand that all stories follow a story arc, children worked on how to draw a story arc plan to help develop ideas. 

In math the Chameleons completed the first check in quiz which will be coming home next week with pupils. Please ask to have a look at their results, on the back of the quiz it clearly shows areas that will still need to be worked on by pupils. We cannot give too  much more time in class for these areas.

Here is an overview of the areas of study we will focus on next week:

English:

This week we are really going to try and cement our understanding of the writing process. Pupils will be going through the steps of thinking of ideas, planning with a character sketch and story arc and then eventually drafting their ideas, turning them into sentences.

Pupils will begin to work on guided reading groups this week as well as develop a more consistent attitude to reading. We will be visiting the class library this week and pupils will be allowed to check books out. This year things have changed slightly, pupils will be able to check out 3 English books and 3 German books. I am asking that all pupils take out at least 1 book of each language. 

Math:

We will be finishing the place value pathway on Monday and the complete the final check in for this unit on Tuesday morning. Following that I will be introducing the next unit of addition and I’ll distribute the new pathway. 

Science:

On Monday 19th I will be giving the Chameleons a quiz to check in how many of the states and capitals they have learned pupils; saw the format of the quiz last week and I feel confident in pupils knowledge. 

Humanities:

Pupils will think about the idea of a growth mindset and think about how having this can help them in their everyday life.

Art:

We will be looking at a range of different minimalist artists this week. We will look at what minimalist art is and begin to design our own minimalist art created using a collage technique. 

German:

Liebe Eltern der Chamäleon-Klasse,

in dieser Woche haben wir uns im Bereich Sprache mit Wortfeldern und Ober-/Unterbegriffen beschäftigt. Zudem haben wir die Rechtschreibstrategien der letzten Woche weiter vertieft. Besonders stolz waren viele Schüler, als sie ihre fertigen Feriengeschichten der Klasse präsentieren könnten.

Zu Ihrer allgemeinen Information: Die 1. Klassenarbeit im Fach Deutsch wird in der 40. Kalenderwoche geschrieben. Der genaue Termin sowie die Themen werden noch festgesetzt. Ab der kommenden Woche arbeiten wir im Fach Deutsch mit einem Wochenplan.

Herzliche Grüße und ein erholsames Wochenende

Agnes Fojcik

 

Sports:

Last week we ensured all students ran for 5 minutes without stopping. This week we will be pushing it to 8 minutes.

We will continue to work on our character strength of perseverance by working towards running at a steady pace for 10 minutes straight.

Have a wonderful weekend.

Sincerely,

Mario Civico and the entire Chameleon team.