Newsletter 21.04.17

Good Afternoon and we hope you all had a lovely break over Easter,

A few quick notes for you from the Chameleon class. 

This week we have had the incredible Circus Laluna in our school teaching all the children some amazing skills! We’ve had some children breathing fire, others balancing on tightropes and even some using swords in quite interesting ways.

Each time that I have seen children come back from an activity they have seemed energized, happy and excited to perform for their parents. After watching the rehearsal over the last two days it is clear that they have been putting all their efforts into the activities.

Due to the grouping of children there have not been many lessons this week. In the lessons that we have had we worked on some problem solving in math, to get our minds back in to the school mentality, as well as ensuring the math groups were ready for the project day next week.

In English we have worked a lot on readers workshop, going back over the rubric that I handed out before the break, reading a number of different non-fiction texts and then questioning each other about the text. We also revisited the idea of a small moment and created some wonderful pieces of writing accompanied by a short comic strip, all related to the circus. 

We have also spent a little more time on their art projects as we continue to look at architecture, we discovered a transforming house in Hong Kong and took inspiration from everyday objects as children continued to use all their perspective skills to design a number of different houses.

Please continue to send in any scrap and rubbish that you have at home, we are looking for any of the following:

-          Cardboard/plastic containers

-          Cereal boxes

-          Toilet roll tubes

-          Newspapers

-          Juice/milk cartons (please wash before hand)

-          Old newspapers

Important Dates:

-          April 27^th – Math project day

-          May 1^st – School closed

-          May 2^nd – Field trip to Hessenpark (information to follow next week)

-          May 24^th – Bundesjugendspiele (weather permitting)

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

English:

In English this week I will be starting to assess children in readers workshop, this will use the rubric which we have been practicing with for the past 3-4 weeks. Children will be given a non-fiction text at their ORT level and then asked the four questions related to the rubric. Children will be receiving the grades as I conduct the assessment.

In writers workshop we will dive into our last unit of the year, literary essays. This unit focuses in on the skills that children gained during the persuasive letter writing unit, previously completed. Children will be choosing a character from a piece of literature and then developing an essay based around a thesis that they create. To teach children about the different character strengths and how their thesis will reflect one of these we will be completing a film study of the movie Sing.

Math:

In Math we will be preparing extensively for the project day on Thursday. Students will be working in their groups to ensure they have everything ready for the project. Due to the fact that the entire day on Thursday will be spent on math, lessons that would normally be math will be changed to another subject for this week.

Science:

In science we will also be starting a new unit which looks deeply at the changes of states and the impact that the changes of state in the water cycle has on the planet. After that we will be teaching children about the scientific method. All of this will culminate in children designing, testing, writing and presenting an experiment.

German:

Liebe Eltern der Chamäleon-Klasse,

in dieser Woche fand das Zirkusprojekt statt, sodass die Klasse oft geteilt war. Deshalb wurde in dieser Woche kein neuer Stoff durchgenommen. Stattdessen haben wir die Zeit genutzt, um vergangenen Stoff zu wiederholen, Lesespurgeschichten zu lesen oder Logikrätsel zu lösen.

Ich wünsche Ihnen ein erholsames Wochenende!

Agnes Fojcik

Have a wonderful weekend.

Sincerely,

Mario Civico and the entire Chameleon team.