First Grade
First graders have read the story of Cinderella and have learned that there are many different versions of the traditional Cinderella story. We are working on writing the True Story of Cinderella based on the book The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by John Scieszka. In our version of the True Story of Cinderella we will tell this story from the point of view of one of the minor characters in the story.

Second Grade
Second graders began a unit about the tropical rain forest. The novel we are reading, One Day in the Tropical Rainforest, takes place in the Amazon rain forest which is located in Venezuela. Students have been assigned to read two chapters each week and to complete vocabulary activities associated with the new words in each chapter.

Third Grade
Third grade students will be learning about the building of the transcontinental railroad. Students will be reading the non fiction text, Railroad Fever, along with excerpts from the fictional short stories in the book, Adventures of Men on Iron Horses. There is also a wonderful PBS video, which documents the building of the railroad, and each week we watch the segment that aligns with we are reading in our fiction and non-fiction texts.

GENRES

The winter session of language enrichment ends this week and the spring session of language enrichment will begin after spring break.  During the final weeks of March, I will visit each first, second, and third grade classroom to conduct critical thinking lessons, which will be used in part to assess students for the spring session of enrichment.

If you have any questions please call me at Avoca West 724-6800 extension 373.

Sharon Ryan

Parent conferences will be held on  Wednesday February 15th and Thursday February 16th. If you would like to schedule a conference, please send me an EMAIL noting a time that works best for you and I will send you an EMAIL reply to confirm the conference date and time.

First Grade
First grade students continue to use critical thinking skills as they read and identify important information about famous Americans.

Second Grade

Second grader students are learning about important events in Chicago’s history (Ft. Dearborn, the Chicago Fire, the Chicago river,  rebuilding Chicago after the fire of 1871) and how many of these important events are represented as symbols on the Chicago flag. Our final project will focus on chicago architecture as students learn how Chicago was rebuilt after the fire of 1871.

Third Grade

Third grade students are  working in teams and each team is representing a different explorer claiming to be  the first to discover America. Students are using critical reading skills to find information about their explorer and are then documenting this information in a written script. Explorer teams will use this script to make a presentation convincing their audience  that their explorer is the true discoverer of America. Students will make their team presentations in March and parents will be invited to attend this program.

Language enrichment classes for the winter semester began on Tuesday, January 3, 2012 and will continue through March 09, 2012.

FIRST GRADE
First grade students will be reading and writing about famous Americans. Students will be introduced to evaluative thinking by reading the Margaret Wise Brown Book, The Important Book, and they will use this strategy to decide which facts are important to remember about  famous Americans.

SECOND GRADE
Second graders will learn about the history of Chicago and compare this history to the Chicago we know today. Students will learn about some of the most important events in Chicago’s history, including the settlement of Fort Dearborn, the reversing of the Chicago River, the Chicago Fire, and how skyscrapers were built as Chicago began to rebuild after the fire. Our final project will be a expository paper and each student will research and write about a different Chicago building.

THIRD GRADE

Third grade students will research and debate the question, Who Really Discovered America? In this project small groups of students will work as separate teams representing different explorers who each claim they discovered America before Christopher Columbus. Students will use critical and creative thinking to present information that they hope will persuade others to believe that their explorer is the true discoverer of America. Students will make their team presentations in March and parents will be invited to attend this program.

If you have any questions, please EMAIL or call me at 724-6800 extension 375.

Language enrichment classes for the fall semester will end on Wednesday, 11/18. During the month of December I will be in each of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade classrooms conducting whole group critical thinking lessons for all students. Using information from these lessons, as well as data from MAP testing, we will determine which students will participate in the winter session of language enrichment.  Parents will receive notification of their child’s participation in the winter session of language enrichment during the winter break holiday. The winter session of language enrichment will begin when we return to school on January 3th and continue through March 09, 2012.

FIRST GRADE students are currently  writing a ‘five senses’ poem, and after Halloween they will begin working on memorizing a Thanksgiving poem titled The Turkey Shot Out of the Oven by Jack Prelutsky. Students will perform this poem for other first grade classes on Monday November 21st, and I will post a video of this performance on our web site. I will ask students to bring a prop to school for our performance, so please send either an apron or a small kitchen utensil, ladle or spatula, to school on or before Monday, 11/21 so that our first grade students can look like chefs who are about to cook a turkey.

SECOND GRADE students continue to read the E.B. White novel, The Trumpet of the Swan. We continue to work on our literature circle jobs, and each week students have homework associated with that week’s reading assignment.

THIRD GRADE students will soon begin typing their original narratives. The students have been working on learning new skills to incorporate into these stories. After we complete our original narratives students will begin writing  ‘group’ stories. Writing group stories helps to reinforce what students have learned about narrative writing and story elements. Students will use photographs as story prompts when they begin writing their group stories.

Each week in language enrichment second grade students are assigned to read three chapters of the novel, The Trumpet of the Swan at home and to complete a worksheet as homework. The following is a list of reading assignments and the dates they are due:

Thursday 10/13             Chapters 7, 8 & 9

Thursday 10/20            Chapters 10, 11 & 12

Thursday 10/27            Chapters 13, 14 & 15

Thursday 11/3               Chapters 16, 17 & 18

Thursday 11/10             Chapters 19, 20 & 21

Homework worksheets vary each week depending upon the job that the student has been assigned. The following are descriptions of each homework worksheet. Please note that the jobs are assigned in alphabetical order. The discussion director job is repeated for two weeks.

Awesome Artist – Your job is to draw a picture illustrating an important part of the reading.

The Bare Bones – Summarizes the important events in the chapter. Bare Bones should be completed for only one chapter in that week’s reading assignment.

Character Web – Write six character traits which describe what your character is like “on the inside”.

Discussion Director – Write down questions for your group to talk about.

Raving Reader – Pick your favorite part of the reading assignment and write down why you chose this paragraph to read.

Word Wizard – Look for new and interesting words in the story.

Parent/teacher conferences are scheduled for Wednesday, October 19th, and Thursday, October 20th, from 3:00 – 6:45 PM. If you would like to schedule a conference, please send me an EMAIL noting a time on the quarter hour which works best for you. I will send an EMAIL reply to confirm the conference date and time. If you would like to schedule a conference, but are unavailable on Wednesday and Thursday, we can schedule another date and time for a conference.

First Grade
First graders started language enrichment classes practicing their divergent thinking by listening to the Chris Van Allsberg story, Two Bad Ants. Students were asked to imagine how common objects might look differently from an ant’s point of view instead of a person’s point of view. We continued this special kind of thinking by reading the Shel Silverstein poem, One Inch Tall. After reading this poem first graders  imagined the world as if they were one inch tall and worked together cooperatively to write their own original version of the One Inch Tall poem, which is posted on the web site along with Shel Silverstein’s poem.

Second Grade
Second graders began language enrichment  learning about literature circles and how to discuss books. Each week students will be assigned 3 chapters of the novel Trumpet of the Swan to read as homework. Additionally they will be assigned one literature circle job to complete as homework in conjunction with their reading. I was very happy to see that the second grade students did a great job this week on their literature circle assignments!

Third Grade
Third graders started language enrichment classes by sharing the wonderful pencil stories that were part of their assessment. The stories were fabulously creative, but we still need to work on some of the elements of story writing including paragraphing, dialog, similes, and showing character feelings. Students have been working on a story-map, which documents the important elements of the original story they will write during our language enrichment classes.

Welcome Back! I will be in each of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade classrooms during the next two weeks assessing students for the fall session of language enrichment.  I will EMAIL parents of students who will be participating in the fall session after 9/8  and our language enrichment classes will begin on September 12th.