"Students in Mrs. Levasseur’s fourth grade class work in partnerships to solve multiplicative comparison problems."
Mrs. Janssen and Ms. Brothers' fifth-grade classes are actively participating in their Book Club unit. During this unit, students choose a fictional story, analyze characters, and explore the literary themes that drive the plot. They also engage in discussions about the author’s craft moves, such as word choice and structure, and analyze character development with their partners, supporting strong comprehension and collaborative discussion skills.
The students created titles for their murals such as:
Look To The Future,
Amanda’s New Home,
A Walk in the Park,
Immigration Emotion,
and The Butterfly Messenger.
Then, by taking a gallery walk to explore each other’s murals, they made connections between these visual representations of the text, the mural titles, and the original text itself. The students noted their connections by annotating with statements such as, “I notice the way that the heart you painted in your mural called “Immigration Emotion”, changes colors to show how the character’s feelings change from the beginning to the end of the story.” Other examples of these notations include, “I think this mural represents the event on page 210, because the character is writing in her diary about her big move to another country.”
They learned that this literary genre blends elements of autobiography and fiction. The author of this particular text blended real events in her own life with fictional details in order to create a compelling story to captivate the reader.
This author has certainly captivated these fourth graders readers!
Happy Thanksgiving to you from a very thankful bunch!
-Ms. Higgins
Hello Families!
In the Grade 3 Resource Room, students are developing reading fluency using Dr. Jan Hasbrouck’s AAA: Accuracy, Automaticity, and Access to meaning. They are using the highly effective and efficient Direct Instruction reading programs to say the letter sounds in sequence without stopping between sounds, then “say it fast.” The pictures below show some of the programs being used. It is exciting to watch the light go on when students learn new letters, letter patterns, and words!
On Thursday we met with students to talk about bus safety and conducted a bus safety drill.
The three biggest rules for the bus:
1. No standing while the bus is moving.
2. No shouting or yelling.
3. No eating or drinking on the bus.
The main goal for the bus is to get everyone to and from school safely!
-Ms. Busbey
In Miss Beyer’s Fourth Grade class, we’ve been working hard in Social Studies! Students are independently engaging with an interactive Linktivity website through Google Classroom, using their Chromebooks to explore and learn in a fun and meaningful way.
Check out these photos of our students making great progress—we're so proud of their focus and enthusiasm!
Thank you for your continued support in helping our learners grow!
A message from Mrs. Bakken and Mrs. Proto's 5th grade team:
We have started our second unit in Mystery Science’s Chemical Magic! In this lesson, students explored what happens when everyday objects like pennies and nails are placed in different liquids. They observed how the metals changed over time and discovered that chemical reactions can cause surprising results, such as rust forming on nails or pennies looking shiny and new again. This hands-on investigation helped students see that chemistry is all around us, even in simple objects, and sparked lots of curiosity about how and why materials change.
Students on the Green and Purple 5th grade teams are practicing how to jot their thoughts while reading and taking those ideas to a deeper level. They focused on applying this skill to a short story, where students had to think critically and make meaningful connections.
In Writing, the focus was on crafting entertaining leads and using elaboration strategies to strengthen our narrative writing. Students learned how to hook their readers from the beginning and expand their ideas with detail and voice.
In Social Studies, students began learning about the settlement of Jamestown, exploring the challenges the settlers faced and the significance of this early colony in American history.
In Math, students explored different ways to decompose prisms to find the volume. They also practiced writing algebraic expressions to represent the volume.
In Science, students are working in the Chemical Magic Unit where students are tasked with discovering what makes a very old material look decayed and worn away. They have all made a claim and are currently working to collect evidence through experiments, articles and videos.
A message from our Reading Interventionist, Sarah Amara:
Build your reading muscle with twenty minutes per day!
What an amazing first day we had in Granby! So much fun welcoming students and staff at all of our schools!
