Newsletter 03.03.17

Good Afternoon,

A few quick notes for you from the Chameleon class. 

This week in English, children have now been putting the finishing touches to their published pieces of persuasive writing. I’ve noticed that a few children still seem to be working on a letter plan, if this is the case for your child this only gives them one more week (three writing sessions) to draft, revise, edit and publish. Please check in with your child that they are on track. When I have noticed this in class I have reminded them of the deadline and explained that they may need to work at home.

As well as this I began to conduct readers workshop conferences with children, these build on the skills taught through the readers workshop and will be ongoing throughout the weeks ahead of us. Within these I ask children to bring a sample of non-fiction text to read to me then ask questions related to specific learning criteria.

We have now finished all of the measurement units within math and have begun our review of everything up to this point. The next formal math assessment has been set for Thursday 16^th March. During this assessment children will be graded on Length, Time, Money and Weight. Questions are based around the work that we completed in class during the pathways. I will spend the next two weeks covering the basics of all of these focusing in on children’s weaknesses.

I have started to see children’s science presentations and I’ve been really happy with most of what I am seeing, children seem to have put in a lot of effort and have stuck closely to the main theme of adaptations within a biome. We will continue to watch these next week, once this has been completed we will take one quick look back at all the teaching that was done within science before giving children and biomes/adaptation quiz, just to check their knowledge.

Next week is World book week, for this Phorms Taunus will be doing a number of special activities which we will fully inform children about at the start of next week. There will be a reading competition to see which class reads the most within the week, a competition to guess each teachers favourite book, bookmark design competition and on Friday 10^th March children (and staff) can come to school dressed as their favourite character from a book. Lastly the Usborne Book Fair will be taking place within the library on 8^th and 9^th March, the Chameleons will be visiting on Wednesday 8^th and if your child does wish to bring in Money they can do.

A letter came home this week which is related to the circus even that is happening after the Easter break, please look at this with your child and discuss which activities they would like to do. Please return the letter before the 10^th March.

Important Dates:

-          6^th – 10^th  March World Book Week

-          8^th – 9^th March Usborne book fair open in the library

-          13^th March English final published persuasive writing due

-          16^th March Formal Math assessment

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

English:

Children are now putting the finishing touches to their letters, making sure that their writing is full of connective words, powerful persuasive adverbs, reasons that connect to their audience, an interesting and effective hook as well as correct punctuation and spelling. I have suggested children bring their letter home to read to someone as this can really help them notice mistakes.

We will continue to look at nonfiction texts, children have been working in small research teams to find out about extreme weather conditions. They will be developing a small presentation from all the research that they’ve done which they will share with other groups in this coming week. 

Math:

Now we will be reviewing everything included in Money, Weight, Time and Length. This will included small quizzes to help indentify children’s weaknesses as well as teaching children some tricks to help with those conversions.

German:

Liebe Eltern der Chamäleon-Klasse,

in dieser Woche haben sich die Schüler intensiv mit Satzgliedern auseinandergesetzt. Neben den bereits bekannten Satzgliedern Subjekt und Prädikat haben die Schüler Objekte und Satzergänzungen kennengelernt.

Außerdem sind die Chamäleons seit dieser Woche Lesepaten einer 1. Klasse. Einmal pro Woche sucht jeder Schüler ein Buch aus und liest es gemeinsam mit „seinem“ Erstklässler. Die Schüler haben ihre Aufgabe sehr ernst genommen und den Kleinen liebevoll vorgelesen oder Sie dazu ermutigt, selbst ein Stück vorzulesen.

Ich wünsche Ihnen und Ihrer Familie ein erholsames Wochenende!

Agnes Fojcik

Have a wonderful weekend.

Sincerely,

Mario Civico and the entire Chameleon team.