Dear Families,
We have been thoroughly enjoying our nonfiction reading unit. I am extremely impressed with the passion of the students as they read books on topics that are of interest to them like natural disasters, whales, famous people like Milton Hershey and Roald Dahl, and the Titanic. We鈥檝e spent a lot of time this week working on identifying the main idea of a text. This may sound easy, but it鈥檚 not. Nonfiction books are complex and it鈥檚 not always crystal clear what the author is trying to say. One strategy that we鈥檙e working on is when we read, a reader should always ask themselves, 鈥淲hat鈥檚 the main idea? What鈥檚 going on?鈥� Then, when we form a guess and we can change our guess as we read. This keeps us engaged in the book and focused on the point the author is trying to make.
听
Our read aloud book, Rad American Women: A-Z has proven to be quite a conversation starter. There is a pattern of prejudice, sexism, and racism prevalent throughout the book. For example, we read about Jovita Idar and Lucy Parsons. Idar fought for the rights of Mexican Americans and women while Parsons led the charge for an eight hour work day. Students were shocked to learn that it was the norm for workers to work 16 hour days. I loved hearing them shout, 鈥淭HAT鈥橲 NOT FAIR.鈥� I didn鈥檛 love hearing them interrupt, 鈥淲hen鈥檚 lunch?!鈥� We also read about Maya Lin, who at 21 years old and still a college student, won a contest to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. We had interesting conversations about workers鈥� rights, benefits, and what a memorial is. We visited the Josh Lucas Memorial Stadium behind the grade school and discussed how memorials come in all different forms, from practical uses like a football stadium to monuments and statues. We also have been watching some pretty cool videos, with Hazel Scott throwin鈥� down on the keys and with Flo Jo setting world records.
听
Our work in writing is paralleling our work in reading. We鈥檙e learning how to be journalists and we started by writing and publishing a news report. I鈥檓 in the process of taking their news reports and putting them together in a newspaper to share with every family. This will probably be done after Thanksgiving break…at some point. Since I鈥檓 the editor of The Barnard Bulletin, I can set my own due dates. It鈥檚 great. We鈥檙e now working on writing feature articles. These types of articles are more in-depth, contain more complex main ideas, are longer, and discuss a topic in greater detail. Some examples of topics the students are writing about include pollution, McDonalds, airplanes, wildfires, shelter dogs, service dogs, 听and killer whales.
Please remember the weekend expectations: silent read, record the reading on the reading log, and study your spelling words. Good news and bad news on that front; the bad news is I didn鈥檛 get a chance to scan the words to include in an email to you, but the good news is that I made sure all students had their words packed before I dismissed them this afternoon. Well, I was going to dismiss them regardless because I wasn鈥檛 about to bring them home this weekend. Otherwise they would be assisting in changing a slew of dirty diapers this weekend at my house, and I mean a slew. Man, babies can poop…
听
I will not be publishing a newsletter next weekend. Also, there will not be new spelling words assigned next Tuesday. Thus, enjoy Thanksgiving break and please put an emphasis on relaxing, eating, relaxing, eating more, and doing some reading.
听
Mr. B
Idiom of the Week: Make My Skin Crawl
