Joining a New Classroom! ... and new Inventions/Social Studies Unit.
We have moved another step into the world of Google this week! Upon returning from vacation I introduced students to Google Classroom, a new resource from, who
else, Google.
This is a fantastic workspace that is gaining speed in classrooms throughout the world. Teachers create assignments and distribute worksheets, videos, documents and more through the classroom dashboard. From there, students learn, create and sumbit their work electronically. It is hard to describe and explain without showing how it works, so I encourage you to ask your children to show you how it works. Some of the advantages are that it gives students the opportunity to work on assignments in the order of their choice and, of course, they can do them at home on sick days and snow days. From my perspective, keeping track of work and commenting on it is much easier and more organized!
On Friday, Craig Miller, a weatherman from WCSH Channel 6, visited WES and chatted with all the third graders about his job and weather. The kids were really interested in his presentation, especially because it fit with a STEM unit on climate that students are just finishing.
We also began prep work for our novel book clubs. Here are some of the highlights
All of you should have signed a contract that your child brought home.
Last week we learned a bit about how to research a topic when students learned about Kate Messner, the author of the books they will be reading.
This week we continue research by looking into some topics that are integral to the books they will be reading and creating video documentaries about them.
Blogging, blogging, blogging: In writing students have published a lot of their writing on our class blog. Just about everyoe has published at least once, so be sure to check out what students have to say. They are finishing up argumentative paragraphs and will include their final versions on the blog soon.
You are welcome and, even encouraged, to comment on what students have written and have friends and relatives comment as well. And, encourage your child to write about what is important in their lives. With all of the snow I will beth there are some really cool snow forts out there! Post a picture and tell the world about it! What else has your child been doing this winter...be sure to blog it!
Science/Social Studies Unit
Over the course of the next few weeks we will be starting a biography unit during Social Studies. The students will be looking at problems that people have faced and how they overcame them. Before we dive into this unit, we will be doing an invention convention to look at ways we solve problems. I know most of the kids are already very excited about this and have probably been talking about it at home!
Just to give you a heads up, we may be looking for things like toilet paper rolls if you have them. Ideally, this will be an at school only project, but the timing is tight and some students may need to finish building at home. If you have any questions at all feel free to reach out to me or Mr. Kafkas; my email is sarah.hockhousen@maine.edu. I am looking forward to an exciting month of inventions and biographies with your students!
-Miss Hockhousen (Miss. H.)
-Mr. Kafkas
And who knows... maybe student "prototypes" and ideas will lead to successful investments/inventions of the future! It all starts with an idea and a little out-of-the-box problem-solving!
