This week in Language Arts: We are completing our SLO (student learning objectives) assessment. It's required by our district to determine growth from the beginning of the year through now. In addition, this week we will be revisiting poetry in reading as well as understanding how to compare two texts that share a similar topic. Usually, one text is fiction and the other is non fiction, but students also might be comparing non fiction to poetry. The idea is to use strategies we've learned throughout the year and apply them to reading and comparing two texts. There will likely be a passage pairing on the STAAR test, as there have been in years past.
Our work in writing this week is integrated with social studies as we are completing our brochures on Texans who served our state at some time in history and are now buried in the Texas State Cemetery, which is our field trip destination this Friday. The docents take us on a tour and tell some pretty interesting stories of some of the men and women who are at rest in the cemetery. They will point out some interesting historical facts as well and highlight some key people in Texas' history. One portion of the field trip will be students with chaperones going to find the location of the graves of the people we've been researching. Students will have a brochure to teach their small group about the person for whom they researched.
Please remember we have TWO field trips this week. Thursday's trip is a walking trip to Bear Lake. Teachers from Keep Austin Beautiful do some great activities with the kids. Fridays, as I mentioned, is to the Texas State Cemetery. Lunch will be back at school on both days.
If you have kiddos participating in a UIL competition, it is THIS Saturday at Galindo Elementary. I will be there with my spelling team.
Homework this week will be on Monday and Wednesday. It's a SHORT one page reading skill practice. Fourth graders are beginning this today. The page is intended to be done independently by the students. Even if they miss something, and you notice, I'd rather you let the error remain so that I may see how to work with them on similar questions in the future. Other than that, students should be reading up to 30 minutes a night now.