PCCS CARES

Monday marks the start of PCCS CARES week. We will begin the week with a motivational speaker and then highlight each letter of CARES throughout the week:

Monday – Collaborate, Tuesday – Aware, Wednesday – Respect, Thursday – Empower, and Friday – Sustainability with a variety of classroom activities and lessons. Be sure to ask your student about each day!

In ELA this week, we will resume spelling sorts, activities, and tests. We will also choose our books for our Literature Circle unit. Literature Circles are small groups of 3-5 students who will read the same book. Within the circle each member will have different roles for each meeting of the group with regular teacher “check-ins”. This format gives the students a chance to take ownership of their learning while working together as a team. Once each group establishes a timeline to finish the book, they will record these dates on their Literature Circle packet. Look for these to come home soon! As I mentioned last week, we are also working on our reading stamina when reading independently. Each student is responsible for completing a weekly reading log Monday-Thursday where they record how many consecutive minutes they were able to read each night and the titles of the books they are reading, verified by a parent signature. These logs will be collected every Friday and are worth 5 points if turned in on time. A half point deduction each day is made for any logs turned in late. Thank you in advance for supporting your child’s reading at home!

In social studies we continue to work on our National Park research papers. At this point, students should have finished their outline (due last Tuesday) and flash draft (due last Thursday). They should also have information for their bibliography in the back of their social studies notebook. On Monday and Tuesday, we will revise our drafts, add any additional information still needed, and take a closer look at our introduction and conclusion paragraphs. The written reports are now due on Wednesday rather that Tuesday due to the fact that some of our social studies time was needed for NWEA testing last week. For the remainder of the week, we will be working on our PowerPoint presentations for the class. These presentations are now due on Tuesday, February 4th and presentations will begin on Thursday, February 6th. I have attached another copy of the expectations and rubrics for both the report and the presentation below. These guidelines can also be found on Google Classroom.

Thank you to those who have been able to take the Heart Challenge online and/or raise money for the American Heart Association. Heart disease affects so many families – including my own – and it’s great to see the education and research that continues through the AHA. At this point, Prairie Crossing has just passed the halfway mark of their $10,000 goal. If you haven’t had an opportunity to participate, please consider supporting this organization. You can use this link.Thanks!