Kiker's Strength-Based Learning Cohort

And we are back in motion! Third Grade started the week back with a trip to The Capitol. It was a beautiful day, and we learned a lot about the Capitol Building and the inner workings. One of our favorite activities was seeing the goddess that tops the rotunda up close. We'd love to go back next year (an even year) where we can go into the Senate and House Chambers (they were in session, so we couldn't interrupt!). We were so excited to get back to Melody's journey! She received a new machine that helps her communicate, and we can see how she has now found a "voice!" We examined some nonfiction text features in an article about elephants. Through all the information, we learned how their skin has amazing properties and how they have adapted to their habitat. In ELA, we focused on some mechanics and even planned a new expository piece. We are reviewing our sentence structure -- how to combine, revise, and make clear -- our thoughts. Spelling is in...

We have been hard at work! This week we are wrapping up our first FIT Climb...a time where we set goals, self pace, and complete assignments! They have been documenting their work and on task! In social studies, we've taken some time to re-establish some important guidelines for technology use. We've reviewed digital citizenship with all its rights and responsibilities. Your student should have brought a Tech Contract home for you to review and sign. They signed them at school, and in doing so, commit to abiding by these guidelines. In ELA, we've been reviewing sentence structure and analysis. Using our strategies is extremely helpful in identifying each building block and makes our editing so clear! We've also been finishing our expository proposals for the Playground Remodel, and they were passed on to Mr. Crissey this week. We are excited to see the changes! In addition, we have been writing an expository for readers to understand our character Melody's cha...

March has been full of all kinds of learning! We enjoyed the Keynotes Concert on Thursday morning -- it's neat to hear expressions of creativity and talent through songs! In math, we're fully immersed in fabulous geometry! We notice polygons in the world around us, can describe characteristics of 5 quadrilaterals, and can use a variety of math symbols to label those attributes. We're working to classify triangles as acute, right, or obtuse and even labeled every triangle on some deluxe paper airplanes as the ultimate triangle learning experience - both challenging and fun! SBLC scientists started the week learning about how Mt. Everest was formed as part of our rock study. We know that our dynamic Earth is always changing, and we used sugar cubes to represent rocks on their journey through the rock cycle. All enjoyed shaking the "rocks" to collect measurable data about weathering over time and discovered how tumbling against other rocks affect the edges of ...

We blinked, and it is March! This week, 4th grade had another field trip to the Paramount Theater downtown. We enjoyed a wonderful musical about Jane Goodall based on the book, Me...Jane. The performers were entertaining as well as talented. We were in the nosebleeds, but there wasn't a bad seat in the house! We've been gathering data from other classrooms at Kiker about their choice on a playground remodel. We wrote the final proposals on Friday and sent them to Mr. Crissey. We are excited to see this come to fruition! In ELA, we've been building stamina in analyzing sentences for accuracy. Remembering our AAAWWUBBIS dependent clauses, independent clauses, conjunctions, commas...it's a lot of work, but we are able to confidently create correct sentences as well as recognize what's inaccurate in sentences too.  We finally had a full week, and spelling centers are back in full swing. We are getting to know our characters well in our book, Out of My Mind. W...