Newsletter 05.05.17

Good Afternoon,

A few quick notes for you from the Chameleon class. 

We started the week with a really incredible field trip to Hessenpark, this open-air museum was a wonderful example of what life in Hessen was like up to 600 years ago. Children took part in a number of different activities. After getting feedback from the class I gather that everyone enjoyed themselves with the only comment being that they wished we’d had more time there.

In English this week we began to plan out our literary essays, there is an example essay that we are writing together and I have ensured that no one in the class is doing the same as me. By having this example essay I will be able to show the class how to write the essay and what I am expecting from their published piece. The deadline has been set for this to be handed in, this is due on the week of 29^th May (the week before Wegscheide). I also continued to meet with children for the reading assessments.

In math we jumped into the new unit of geometry, firstly we focused on 2d and 3d shapes. We did some recap as a few students were a little uncomfortable with the names of the shapes. We also started to look at the different types of angles and how to measure them. I introduced a lot of new vocabulary to the children this week and I will be testing their knowledge of this vocabulary on 16^th May. This will be the first part of the final math formal assessment, a larger part of the assessment will come from a project based activity which we will complete before Wegscheide. More details will follow regarding this.

We didn’t have much time for science this week due to the holiday on Monday and then our trip to Hessenpark, I was able to fit in a recap session of the changes of state materials as well as briefly discussing the water cycle again.

I handed out a pack of 4 pages to children this afternoon, this contains information regarding Wegscheide. Please take a lot of this with your child and return the permission slips by May 19^th.

Thank you for all the scrap donations, we now have an enormous amount of materials to build with. I’m really excited to see the giant city that children will build using what you have provided.

Below are a number of dates that you should be aware of in May, a few of these are related to assessments in both Math and English. More details can be found in their respective sections below.

Important Dates:

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

-          May 12^th – Science quiz related to the changes of state and the water cycle.

-          May 16^th – Formal Math quiz related to Vocabulary

-          May 24^th – Bundesjugendspiele (weather permitting)

-          May 29^th – June 2^nd – Formal Math conference of Geometry Project

-          May 29^th – June 2^nd – Published Literary Essay to be handed in

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

English:

Next week in English we will continue to the write the guided literary essay based around a character from Sing, almost all children have now completely planned their literary essay and are ready to start drafting their paragraphs.

I will also continue to assess reading using the readers workshop non-fiction rubric.

Math:

We will be continuing to work on geometry in math, reviewing 2d and 3d shapes again as well as covering the vocabulary which will be on the assessment quiz. I will also begin to look at the concept of area and perimeter and children will need to be able to calculate the area and perimeter of different shapes using their rulers and squared paper.

Science:

We will begin to discuss the experiment process, looking firstly at creating their own hypothesis, discussing experimental variables and then also testing those hypotheses. As well as this we will take a brief look the impacts of the water cycle in the form of erosion and weathering.

German:

Liebe Eltern der Chamäleon-Klasse,

in dieser Woche haben wir mit der Personenbeschreibung begonnen. Die Schüler haben eine Geschichte über zwei Freunde gelesen, die sich auf einem Stadtfest aus den Augen verlieren und dazu Personenbeschreibungen verfasst. Außerdem haben die Schüler im Rahmen unserer Lesepatenschaften Erstklässlern vorgelesen und sich vorlesen lassen.   

Ich wünsche Ihnen eine erholsames Wochenende!

Agnes Fojcik

Enjoy the weekend.

Sincerely,

Mario Civico and the entire Chameleon team.