What a month we’ve had! I’ve included our last month’s blog as well as this month’s into one so buckle up everyone!
CHINA:
As you already know, we have been learning all about China and are bringing this super fun exploration to an end. Over the last six weeks, we have been having a lot of fun exploring China and enjoying its rich history and interesting culture and traditions. The novel we’ve been reading is called Where The Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin and it’s an amazing book! Our main character Minli is off on an adventure to find the old man of the moon and bring fortune to her family, but she keeps having random and exciting encounters! Can your child summarize what has happened so far? Everyone seems to be enjoying it and can’t wait to see what’s next for Minli! Additionally, we have taken multiple trips to the library to check out a variety of books both non-fiction and fiction books about China, as well as novels everyone has been reading independently at school in preparation for a book report. One book we read and really enjoyed was The Wishing Tree by Roseanna Thong. We learned all about a very common and long-passed tradition of writing wishes on a special paper, rolling it like a scroll, and tying an orange onto the string before throwing them onto a tree, usually a banyan or camphor tree because these varieties have large aerial roots that twist and curve into strange and unusual shapes. We made a mini version in our class and wrote our wishes then rolled up our paper and “threw” them on! I’ve also sent home Ng Bo Dip, or Five Treasure Piles to write wishes on at home with you all as well two weeks ago.
Your kiddos have been working really hard on this month’s 4 c’s project. While learning about Chinese culture and architecture, we of course had to learn all about the Great Wall of China! Did you know that stretches over 13,000 miles! Our class spend time studying how it was built and came up with their own ideas on how to build their own models, However, this seemed like a great time to work on another collaboration/creativity/critical thinking/communication skill building project as a class! I have to say, watching every single one of your children discuss for 45 minutes how they would build the Great Wall, what materials they would use, compiling lists and assigning job titles to everyone, was remarkable. I was listening and watching in awe at not only how everyone was patiently waiting to share their input, but also how respectful everybody was of each other, even when they did not agree. My favorite was when everyone got a little excited and someone chimed in, “Guys! Don’t forget WE’RE the ones building this…let’s scale it back like a lot!” I know your children are super excited to show you all their Great
Wall of China during conferences in two weeks! By the way, have you signed up? https://www.signupgenius.com/go/30E0F4BAFA72CABFA7-51785237-spring#/
Some other cool activities we did while learning about China were of course celebrating Lunar New Year with a special Lunar lunch! We had so much fun! I’m really proud of all of your children for willing to try everything I had on the menu! Steamed shrimp dumplings were a HIT! We also had chicken fried rice, chicken lo mein, sweet and sour pork (another fav), potstickers, crab rangoons (least fav surprisingly!), and of course, fortune cookies and tangerines! After everyone went around and shared what their fortunes said, we took a look at the six lucky numbers on the back. Everybody wrote their own down because of course we had to make it math friendly! I asked everyone to tell me the total of their lucky numbers and arrange themselves from greatest to least. Once we figured that out, we had fun adding and subtracting to find the difference or sum between friends’ numbers. We also had a lot of fun learning how to make traditional lanterns in red of course! Can your child tell you why we used red and yellow?
Additionally, we noticed in many of our books about China, how common banners were, especially of course during Lunar New Year. So we wrote our own! At first, we chose words from a chart that we could use to write a sentence in English and then translated it into Chinese characters. We learned that Chinese uses a logographic writing system, which we thought was so cool that logographic is a Greek word! Take a look at our awesome banners!
MATH:
As we continue to practice and strengthen our multiplication and division skills, we have moved into fractions and decimals. It may be a good idea to encourage your child to practice their mental math skills by playing a game while they’re getting ready for school, driving around in the car, getting dressed for bedtime, etc. It could be as simple as rapid fire times tables (for example, what’s 4×5, 5×6, 7×7, etc.). We have LOTS to show you during conferences!
In addition (pun intended), to our everyday math games, challenges, lessons, and activities, we typically explore one new math mindset “big ideas” monthly and a new act. Mindset mathematics is ” a curriculum series that uses a visual approach to teach math concepts to students in kindergarten through 8th grade. The goal is:
- To help students develop a conceptual understanding of math
- To help students see the connections between math ideas
- To help students develop a growth mindset in math
- To help students see how math is important in their lives
Mindset math is a great tool for us to use in our math curriculum and the kids remain interested, engaged, and have fun! As always, we continue to play math games everyday such as Adsumudi, Proof, Zeus on the Loose, etc. to strengthen our math skills in a super fun way!
Literacy:
What’s your favorite meal? What happened in Alaska in 1964? What is the history of candy hearts? What does your house look like? These are just a handful of descriptive writing exercises we have been doing lately to strengthen our writing skills. When I ask the class to write using lots of adjectives about something familiar to them, I want their goal to be to give so much detail that whoever is reading what they wrote is able to draw a picture without having first hand experience. I am so proud of all of your children and not only how much they have improved their writing, but how excited they get when writing a new book report, peer-editing a friend’s journal, or describing their chapter check-ins to me. Recently, we took a trip to the Des Plaines Public Library and everyone checked out a Magic Treehouse chapter book. Because they aren’t my personal copies, everyone was instructed to take them out to read only during restful reading or free choice time. After reading their books, they drafted their book reports in their journals. Once their rough draft was complete and they edited with me, it was time to write our final report! Everyone is really excited to showcase their hard work during conferences.:) Thank you for continuing to read with AND TO your children daily and filling out the reading logs! Did you know a student that reads 20 minutes a day will be exposed to 1.8 million words per year and they score in the 90th percentile on standardized tests? WOW!
Home Connection:
Announcements:
- Please make sure you have signed up for conferences! If you don’t see a time that works for you, please let me know and we can find an alternate date/time that works for everyone.
- We have a lot of growing bodies in our class! Please make sure your child has a well-stocked lunch as some of our friends are finishing up very quickly and are still hungry.
- We will be back at school on Wednesday, April 2. Enjoy your spring break and don’t forget about your reading logs!
I look forward to seeing you all this week for conferences!
-Ms. Anna
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“Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”- Albert Einstein
