Trimester Three!

We have been back at school for a few days now and are, amazingly, in our third trimester of the school year! February/March always seems to be the time when I look at the class and think, "wow! They have come a long way!" These students are working hard and learning so much.

This trimester we have a focus on nonfiction technical text in reading and writing. We are starting to really analyze the differences between nonfiction technical text and fiction/narrative nonfiction and we are starting to write nonfiction pieces as well. The first graders will soon start learning to do research as well! Stay tuned for more on that in the coming weeks.

We just started a social studies unit called "Places in Our World" where we focus on studying the country of Mexico. We started by looking at their map and learning some about their geography and weather and will learn so much more about our neighbor to the south over the next month and a half. I have a connection with a first grade teacher in Monterrey, Mexico and part of our country study will include connecting with her class. I have been doing this with my classes for the past few years and find it to be such a great learning experience. What better way for kids to start learning about another culture/country than to introduce them to kids their age from there! We begin by creating and exchanging short videos introducing ourselves and then email back and forth to ask and answer questions about each other (these often include what our weather is like, what kinds of animals live near us, what we like to do in our free time, what we are learning at school, what kinds of games/toys/sports we play, etc). The kids always love to learn how much they have in common with kids in another country. You might want to brainstorm with your child at home and think of questions they might have for the first graders in Monterrey! In April, once we have learned a lot more about Mexico and had some email exchange with the class there, we will Skype with them so we can actually meet! We have lots of exciting stuff coming up in the next couple of months!