NEWS
Updates on school and classroom information
We certainly learned a lot today about how e-learning can and cannot work. Thank you all for your patience. Thank you, too, to those of you who provided feedback and asked questions about how to navigate Classroom. Your thoughts helped me to streamline the system. Looking forward to tomorrow, I’ve made the following notes:
Instead of looking for assignments in Classroom, use my website. There are links to every assignment in the schedule. The site is at https://dkrauter1.wixsite.com/classroom/projects. Students that simply went through the website schedule clicking links appeared to feel more successful. They also got everything done. Wednesday's assignments will be live after 8:00 tonight.There are four ways to turn in classwork.Share a GoogleDoc with Ms. Nolan and meMake a comment under the assignment in Classroom (mainly for book club discussions). Please follow all of the rules for commenting.At the bottom of an assignment, tap “Add Attachment.” Tap “New Doc.” The app will title and prepare a blank document. Tap “Turn In” to submit the assignment.At the bottom of an assignment, tap “Add Attachment.” Tap “Use Camera.” Take a picture of your work. Tap “Turn In” to submit the assignment.Participate in a discussions by posting comments. We have specific guidelines for making comments. I said this above, but it’s important to note the discussion is one of the best tools for learning. We use it A LOT in class. It’s hard to replicate it here, but we’re trying.Attendance and work completion - Teachers are taking attendance at 8:00 every evening. I am tracking participation in discussions and assignment submissions. If your child has participated, I am considering them present.I want us to all stay connecting while we are all physically apart. I believe that it will contribute to positive mental health. For this reason, we have an official Chat Page. It is available at https://classroom.google.com/u/0/c/ODUxMDgzOTc1OFpa/a/NTQwMTk2MDU5OTFa/details Everyone used this today to have discussions, some silly and some serious. There was a lot of talk about food.If you have ANY other thoughts, concerns, ideas, or anything else, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I will be at my computer and responding between 8:30 and 2:00 (except while I walk the dogs).
It has been a busy couple of weeks. Our routines are in place and lots of learning is happening.
Literacy instruction has been focused on reading and writing narratives. We have been talking quite a bit about monitoring (watching or focusing on something) while reading. We have learned the importance of monitoring our attention to a story, the characters and their conflicts, and unfamiliar words.
Up until now, we have been writing on topics of our own choosing. We are getting much better at planning before writing and at writing fluently (not stopping often). We’ve addressed end punctuation and capitalization as well, though this will be an ongoing focus for instruction. Our learning from the social studies unit is crossing over into literacy instruction. We have been conducting research on the Chicago fire and have been reading first-hand accounts (primary sources). Now, students are writing letters and diary entries from the perspective of someone that survived the fire. We will be talking about how to craft these stories so that they are interesting to others and easy to understand.
In math, we took the Unit Two post-test, and have begun learning to add and subtract larger numbers. Additionally, we are working on applying basic algebraic concepts to balance equations.
Our science unit is beginning soon. We will be studying animal traits and classification. This is an exciting unit and I am sure we’ll learn quite a bit while having fun with the materials.