We are establishing our peer editing process in which we sit in a circle, pass our Writing Journals to each other, and identify strengths in what we are reading from colleagues. This is a strategy first introduced to me by Kitty Gillette, a 4th grade teacher at Westergard Elementary, and it has proven to be a great way of building classroom community. Moreover, it helps everyone become better writers.

Today we started learning about the properties and behavior of different substances. Our first experiment is allowing us to get closer to understanding to fundamental ideas of chemistry including being able to describe mixtures and solutions. Over the coming weeks we will learn about density, mass, solubility, and chemical reactions.

We are one week into our exploration of the Maya and ancient civilizations in Mesoamerica. Our big question is how geography effects culture and we are sifting through some challenging material, collecting ideas and information, to answer this question. The use of the parenthetical will become key as we start supporting claims with evidence and appropriate reasoning. (And look, no uniforms, picture day!)

Today we completed our first Structured Academic Controversy (SAC). Students read two articles about lunch policies in which some districts are requiring all children to eat meals prepared by the schools. Some students had to support the claim that children should be able to bring their own lunches while others had to argue the opposite.

This was an opportunity for students to learn to how to appropriately argue and consider perspective taking. In this case, students did not initially know which side they would take and had to prepare for both stances.

We are quickly establishing our Word Study routine and students know how to complete a closed sort, an open sort and how to integrate their understanding into a game of Eye Spy. We will briefly discuss Word Study at our Brown Bag Lunch in September. Until then, please consider playing a game of Eye Spy, using the words from school, over the next few weeks.

Students are learning to annotate text and identify claims, evidence and reasoning. Despite this being our first attempt, the children have proven quite adept at the process and were able to find all the relevant information in the passage.

This is a strategy we will continue refine and apply throughout the year. This will prove especially important as we start Document Based Questions and We The People.

The first two days of school focused on establishing our classroom rules and procedures. We described “expected” and “unexpected” behavior for group work and applied this to a several icebreakers, content from Youcubed.org, and the introduction of Confidence Buddies. Student completed job applications and signed their rental agreements.

We did our first Number Talks, Juicy Sentences and learned the basic of annotating complex text. In short, it has been a great two days!

It was a whirlwind of activity beginning Tuesday when we finally got into our classrooms. All told, 55 boxes were unpacked, 29 student desks built, a bean table and rectangular table constructed, and a whole lot of Activboard troubleshooting completed.

Those brown walls should soon be covered with student work and artifacts of their learning. That work begins day one!

I had a chance to peek inside the classroom and take a look at where we will be working next year. Hard not to get excited by the upgrades including an ActivBoard Touch, new whiteboards, and ample space to share student work.