Maple Room News
March 30 - April 3
Enjoy Spring Break
Thank You,
Meghan and Brian
Family Pot Luck
Sharing of Cultural and Family Traditions
"They are not the same as dumplings. Wontons are made from thin, flat squares that look like bread. Dumplings are made form circles," said Princeton, following Meghan and Peter's share.
There are others in our community who eat bun and cheese, a delicious Jamaican treat, commonly consumed during spring. Others, such as Brooke, make berry muffins on the weekends.
Did you know that French school children, often celebrate the first day of April by slapping decorated paper fish onto teacher's backs? This year, Brian spent the majority of April Fools with one on his.
Although our unit has come to a close, our 'study of us' has only begun. We'll spend the remainder of our years together celebrating our differences and embracing our commonalities.
Reading Workshop
We also worked on being reading partners that teach one another. We also played different games with our partners.
When partners study topics we can find information that is the same and different in our books. We can play the same and different game! Partners can work together to choose books from their book baggies and talk about what’s the same and what’s different. Once parts are identified, partners can take turns reading parts that are the same and different to one another. You can play the "same and different" game at home with your Maple!
Readers use the patterns in our books to look for information and ideas that go together. After reading books, a reader asks, “What did the authors want me to learn in these books?”
Our sight words this week: girl, how, when, your
Math Workshop
Take time over your spring break to look carefully for patterns alongside your Maple. Perhaps you'll see something new in your home, or while walking to an from a subway station. Pattens are everywhere! Look!
Writing Workshop
This week, we reviewed how to write a true story. We know that it is much easier for us to come up with ideas for stories when they are based on events from our own lives. The Maples understand that they need to include who is in the story, where the story took place, and what happened.
We finished our class story about the time that there was a a mouse in our classroom. The class worked hard on remembering to use capital letters at the beginning of sentences, add finger spaces, and to sound out all words.
We also learned that writers and readers have a lot in common. Just like readers, writers re-read their writing all of the time. We can re-read our writing after sounding out a tricky word and after adding a sentence to our paper. This will help us make sure that our writing is as clear as it can be for our reader. It also helps to keep our stories in our mind as we are writing.