100 Days and Two Trimesters Later . . .

Wow, it’s hard to believe that we recently celebrated the 100th day of school!  While Porter’s and Union have major celebrations and activities on this landmark day, Techkids decided to keep it simple during snack :).  We had a few minutes of fun creating a giant 100.

Proud Moments

Techkids are out and about helping other classes at MBS! In January, several of our students taught several of Mrs. Rogers’ students how to use WeVideo.  They recently had their class celebration.

Four Techkids have been teaching Mrs. Carney’s class how to make a picture frame with our Linx wood kit for the past two weeks. Last week they taught them how to plan their frame on graph paper, and this week they hauled down our saws and wood to demonstrate and teach our 4th grade friends how to cut the pieces and glue them together.  Mrs. Carney was impressed with their clear instruction emphasizing safe use of saws.  We will be sharing our knowledge with other MBS classrooms for the rest of the year!

Literacy:

We just wrapped up our opinion writing unit with an on-demand writing task about Zoos.  5th graders at MBS had to use a video and an article to form an opinion about whether or not we should have zoos. During this unit, we learned how to take notes, organize our ideas, develop a thesis statement and formulate an essay.  It was hard work and we became better opinion writers.

In reading we have been working on reading informational text, including digital text from sources like Newsela & Dogo News.  We keep track of our thinking using graphic organizers.  We are still reading our novels during independent reading, so we are practicing finding a balance between informational and fictional text.

Nuts & Bolts:

• Conferences are the week of March 7th.  Students are encouraged to attend.  Please let me know if you have any questions.  Sign up here.
• Mr. Dineen will be subbing while I am out (Thurs/Friday before vacation & Wed-Friday after vacation).  Mrs. Powsner will also be filling in both Thursday afternoons, as Mr. Dineen has his student teaching seminar.  I will be in contact with both of them, and available via Remind or email if you need me for any reason.
• We are wrapping up our work with Officer Fontaine and the DARE program.  Students have a few more lessons and will begin working on a DARE project this week.  Their project will be on their “natural high” and could be anything from an essay, or a video,  or a slideshow.  Techkids will have choice of technology as long as it follows the project guidelines.