Hi Families!
Quick notes to know:
- 1/27/20 PCCS CARES Assembly & CARES week/School of Choice week
- Now- 2/21 Box Tops Contest- Send in your box tops
- Now- 2/28- American Heart Association Fundraiser
- 1/30 Field trip – * snack in the afternoon, please no nuts/heat ups as we will have a shorter lunchtime- Thank you!
- 2/5 E.R. Snunch- not nuts please
- 2/7 Pizza Friday
- 2/14 Valentine Party and PBIS (we have 24 students, names are listed on the directory listed on this website page)
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- Spelling Bee: Congratulations to the Larson-Ottaviani third grade winner Claire S. and runner-up Sharanya N. and fourth grade winner Fariz Rafi and runner-ups Gauri Hattarki/Anay Ganesh. They represented the Larson-Ottaviani classrooms well! We are really proud of you- way to go!
- Left party items… Please let me know if one of these trays belongs to you. Thank you!
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The Kid’s Heart Challenge has begun and the American Heart Association needs your help. Please help PCCS reach our goals of raising $10,000 for the Kid’s Heart Challenge. If you can’t raise money, you can still help PCCS reach our goal of having over half the students sign up online. The class that has the most students sign up online will receive a recess basket of new equipment. Be sure to sign up online!
http://www2.heart.org/goto/prairiecrossingcharter
- The 1st/2nd grade band is going to be selling Bean Soup in a Jar as part of our Economic Unit. We will be using beans that we have harvested from our garden beds. We will be having a pre-sale from Jan 27th – Feb 7th. Our soup will also be featured at the February Farm to Table. Each jar will cost $8. Thank you for your support! ~1st/2nd Teachers and Students Bean Soup Order Form
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NEXT WEEK:
Reading and Writing,
In writing we are working on a fictional narrative with children’s author Natalie Rompella. Students are creating a fractured myth using The Chocolate Touch/ King Midas story structure to create a new story. The theme of the story is too much of a good thing isn’t good. Students have brainstormed ideas for their new version of this classic myth. They also have spent time thinking about, developing and describing their story’s setting. We will continue on this story for the next few weeks. This week, students will work through exercises that develop their character’s personality. Then, we will start working on the rough draft. We will also work on editing and develop a final draft.
We are continuing our unit on figurative/non-literal language. Students have learned about similes, metaphors, hyperbole, alliteration, onomatopoeia, idioms, personification and allusion. We will continue reviewing these literary techniques and students will practice using these as well as recognizing this in text they are reading. We will have a quiz on figurative language this week as well.
Our Martin Luther King Jr. reading activities took up most of the last two weeks. So, this week we will listen to “The Kindness Quilt” by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace in our listening center and create our own kindness square. In our reading groups, we will read informational articles on acts of kindness and answer questions about the articles. These articles include students who throw a party for their classmate who is about to undergo brain surgery, a preteen who bakes and donates to the homeless and a text that goes to the wrong person that results in a large donation to a child in the hospital.
We will also be reading books about kindness and inclusion. Students will be writing on prompts that exemplify the C.A.R.E.S. attributes (Collaborate, Aware, Respect, Empower, Sustainability).
3rd grade Math,
We are taking the Unit 4 final assessment on Tuesday, January 28th. Study guides were sent home last week and are due on Monday January 27th. Then we will start unit 5.
We will work on module 1 of unit 5 this week and next. Module 1 Module 1 focuses on linking multiplication & division concepts. In this module, students are formally introduced to division, working from what they already know about multiplication to understand division as the inverse operation, just as subtraction is the inverse of addition. After taking the unit pre-assessment on Wednesday, students will work together to make a class chart about things that come in 4s. In the second session, the teacher guides them in labeling the class chart with multiplication and division equations, and beginning to link the two operations. The rest of the sessions in the module provide numerous opportunities to understand the meaning of both operations and how they relate to each other, via arrays and story problems set in the context of a game store. Throughout this module, we will also incorporate previously learned math skills such as measurement, fractions, time, addition and subtraction strategies.
4th grade math,
Please see Mrs. Ottaviani’s website for 4th grade math information and updates.
Science/Social Studies,
We have finished our science unit on sound. We are starting a new science unit on motion and matter. This unit will look at how gravity works, push/pull concepts, and simple machines. Students will also be building carts and testing them towards the end of this unit. This unit will span three weeks.
We are continuing phenology and solo spots, alternating each week. Please make sure your student is prepared to be outside on a regular basis.
I hope you have a wonderful week!
