Happy HolidaysStudents have already shared their excitement for the holiday season. As a way to honor all holidays, our class will hold a small celebration the day before our break (Friday 12/21) from 1:15 pm - 2:30 pm. I apologize but this celebration will be students only as we focus on completing a variety of STEM based activities. We will also spend some time learning about different holidays around the world in the morning. Please encourage your learner to share whatever he/she would like about your family celebrations and traditions. What should we do during the break? Your little learner has made tremendous growth in the way that he/she thinks about school. Whether it is reading a piece of literature, researching a topic with a nonfiction text, or exploring the outdoors, the world already looks different. During the break take time to check in with your learner. You can catch up on different lessons that have been shared on our Class Facebook Page or take a look at the learning through Google Classroom. Ask about the author’s purpose and whether text is fiction or nonfiction. Then, challenge your learner and make him/her explain why using evidence.
Our focus for explaining our thinking is called, Claims, Evidence, Reasoning. In writing we are focusing on addressing a prompt with the language that is in the question first. After that he/she should be making a claim or opinion about the question. Then comes evidence to support the claim, as well as reasoning for that specific claim. Finally, the expectation is to bring it all together with a final statement. It is pretty tough to do, but practice is always the way to get better.