Kiker's Strength-Based Learning Cohort

Families, Thanks so much for the generous gift cards and beautiful flowers for each of us. We feel the appreciation of what we do through your support every day, but this gift was truly something to show us how loved we are! 💗 This week, we have been so busy, we thought you'd want a glimpse...ask your kiddos to explain the events that correspond with these pictures! Happy Holidays -- we wish two weeks of fun, family, and relaxation -- see you in January! Best, Jewellyn and Jen

Wow. Our week has been full. As consumers, we enjoyed the Second Grade's annual Market Day. Great finds, and so much creativity! On Wednesday, Third Grade went to the Long Center for one act of The Nutcracker Ballet. They enjoyed dressing up and getting off campus to experience this artistic expression! Our signs received their final pieces -- THANK YOU Mr. Swearingen for your engineering and carpentry expertise and help! In our humanities, we've been analyzing poetry and researching for our Texas Heroes vignette that we are writing. We have been learning about all sorts of Texas History...and are excited to share that through the eyes of a famous Texas Oak! We also wrote thanks to Mr. Dodson, the man who made our Hands Across Kiker possible in November with his drone and to Mr. Swearingen for his Keyhole Garden help. Authentic reasons to write! SBLC mathematicians solved their first Match it puzzles this week! This 4-part experience challenges each studen...

It was another busy week! We started out by presenting our fabulous knowledge of Keyhole Gardens to our sidekick class and administration. It's exciting to know that our signs and voices will be a part of Kiker forever. We really appreciate Mr. Swearingen's help in building some fabulous stands -- once they are up, be sure to stop by and take a read/listen! Our Humanities blocks are beginning our inquiry into Texas history through some Texas Hero Oak Trees. We are examining point of view, poetry, and new vocabulary in order to create personal vignettes from the tree's eyes. More to come! As we wrap our keyhole garden project, we've zoomed out to consider the importance of plants for nourishment through the food chain, balancing the amount of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the atmosphere, etc. We reviewed plant structures and functions, then moved right into the scientific method. While we've used every part of the scientific method through the ye...

We explored more ways we connect with each other this week. We shared ideas and preferences where we found a lot of "me too" signs happening! Mrs. Bankston also led a lesson on teamwork, which gave us additional practice on working together. Ask your child about the softball players and the cup stacking! We have been asked to create signage for Kiker's Keyhole Gardens, so our work in ELA and reading has been about these special gardens. We have learned nonfiction signposts to help us dig into informational reading, we've learned and written letter form asking experts for help, and we are writing expository pieces to put together information explaining the function and uniqueness of those gardens. BIG WORK! SBLC third graders led the Kiker community in honor of our veterans -- such a fantastic performance! We've been "digging in" to the importance of compost and the many elements of soil. Students know that all of our food can...

We have really enjoyed with meeting with all of our family units this past week! 45 meetings is a lot, and it does take time, but we truly value both teachers getting that time to sit down with each of you. Thanks too, for your work last weekend going through the notebooks! Know that your child can bring them home to review with you anytime -- just make sure they return them the very next day. We work with the notebooks every day. Thursday night, your child brought home a permission slip to join NASA's Name the Rover Contest. We are endeavoring to write our first polished expository piece through this opportunity. If you don't give permission, no problem -- they will write the same piece, I just won't enter them in the contest. It's a perfect way to show them in an authentic, motivational way how to write to a prompt, choose a central idea, and explain with examples (in 150 words or less -- they'll have to be precise!). In reading, we are researching through n...

We have spent this week taking time to look back at all the learning, process, and growing we have done. The kids have looked through all of their notebooks and reviewed work products, work habits, and rubrics. Reading, writing, math, and word work notebooks all came home today. We talked to students about their responsibility in this. They need to set up or ask you for a specific time that works for you to review their work. Sit side by side and go through each notebook. They will be able to talk you through each activity and what it means. There is a reflection sheet -- one for math and one for ELA -- for you to fill out and return. As you go through, remember the questions/approach we talked about at Back to School Night. In addition, keep in mind that the kids definitely have a growth mindset and are already setting goals in areas they know are wanting to get better at. In reading, we definitely have a solid theory of Red's struggle. Now we are using each piece to make sens...

We are curious! Curious, inquisitive, watchful, observant... We've been exploring words in our spelling and vocabulary study to expand our understanding of how curiosity drives our learning! In reading, we've dug deeper into the character and setting of Wishtree . We've discovered the importance of STOPPING, pausing, and noticing what we've read. Taking the time to think, theorize, and process is going to make the difference between a surface "it was a good book" to a passionate "WOW! There's so much I want to tell you about this book!" Our writing has taken a new, much improved, slant. We are working to make the focus of the piece not an event -- where writing becomes a list of things done -- to focus on the character. They are learning to show a change, a trait, or something significant about the PERSON. That's the real story. We are revising and editing along the way! We wrapped up our place value unit this week, although we continu...

This week things have been rolling along, and we are now getting into a natural rhythm with our schedule. Readers have been investing in their character Red, in Katherine Applegate's latest novel, Wishtree.  They have been learning about the power of really slowing down and looking at ALL parts of the beginnings of books -- the blurb, the dedication, pictures, poems -- all are crucial parts, and all is done ON PURPOSE by the author. Good readers pay attention to all of that. Red has deemed us trustworthy of an important story, and we are on pins and needles to find out what it is (plus we feel a high responsibility to pay attention and be worthy of this great honor 💓 ). In writing and word work, we have been exploring the power of how sentences are crafted. It's not just about having a capital at the beginning and a punctuation mark at the end. It's also having a subject, a predicate, and organizing all the words to have the impact we desire on the reader. We have work...

This week we finished drafting and creating our Courage Projects. We implemented phrases that have Kind, Specific, and Helpful thoughts to encourage one another to make this clearer for an audience. We also used our rubrics as tools to evaluate where our work was, and we also used those descriptors to help us "level up" and elevate the quality of our work. This week we finished drafting and creating our Courage Projects. We implemented phrases that have Kind, Specific, and Helpful thoughts to encourage one another to make this clearer for an audience. We also used our rubrics as tools to evaluate where our work was, and we used those descriptors to help us "level up" and elevate the quality of our work. In reading, we've been examining characters -- analyzing traits, determining their struggles, and identifying ways they changed. We have been learning to prove our thinking with evidence from the text too. In our word work, we looked at ways soun...

We have been hard at work -- so much learning packed into five short days! We continue learning routines and procedures that set us up for success all year long. These include choosing just right books, collaborating effectively, finding our best spaces for independent work, using rubrics and criteria to improve the quality of our work, and lots of community-building. We're off to a great start with daily morning meetings, learning the names of all 45 classmates, and organizing our notebooks/supplies. These first two weeks have also included lots of social-emotional learning (SEL) lessons, some of which we've crafted into mantras that help us through the day. Your student knows these two mantras already: I think before I act or speak and I focus when I listen . We've also talked about how readers, writers, scientists, and mathematicians all learn best with a growth mindset. This means we know that our effort creates our abilities and that all of us have limitless pote...

We made it! We are sure your kiddos, just like us, are tired...lots of learning, new names, faces and routines! Here's a glimpse! Remember to send in the decorated notebooks on Monday. We are using them first thing! Relax, get some rest, and we will be ready to hit the ground running on Monday!