Purse Pages

October 21, 2016

Edition 4

Halloween is almost here!

Dear Parents,
Can you believe
Halloween is already
almost here? As you
are all aware Monday
Oct. 31st is our
Halloween party and
the much-anticipated
parade. Classroom
celebrations begin at
2:00 and the parade
will begin at 3:00.
If your child is going
home for lunch to

change into their

costume please send
a note letting me
know who will be
picking them up from
school. If your child
is staying at school
we have a fun lunch
and recess planned.
They will also have
plenty of time to
change into their
costume.

As soon as Mrs.
Mobus gets word on
picture retake day I
will let you all know.
We do not have a
date as of yet.

Whats Happening in the Classroom?

ELA

During ELA this week we

continued to focus on
realistic fiction. Andrew
Clements is a popular
author who has written
many outstanding novels.
This particular selection
required the students to
make many inferences
while reading since it was
just a chapter from the
novel.
We continued to explore
our theme of beliefs and
values.
This week we focused on
the essential question: At
what lengths will someone
(a character) go to, to
protect his or her values?

The students are

continuing to work through
our novel Bud Not Buddy.
I introduced our read to
self 4 square where the
students annotated while
reading, recorded some of
their thinking and wrote
summaries about what
they had read. We
discussed their
interpretations of the text.
It was interesting for them
all to see how easily they
can misinterpret
information and how they
can all read the same text
and interpret it differently.
This led to a good
discussion about slowing

down, reading carefully

and questioning
themselves while they are
reading.
They are becoming more
skilled at annotating while
reading and deciphering
between important main
ideas and minor details.

Social Studies
We continued to work
through our unit on the
American Indians. The
students looked at
migration routes the early
settlers, the environments
they settled in and how
they had to adapt to those
environments.

Page 2 of 3

Continued
Science

"I cannot
teach
anybody
anything. I
can only
make them
think."

-Socrates

This has been a fun week.

The students took on the
role of engineers. After
learning all about mixtures
and solutions over the
past several weeks, they
had to design their own
plan to separate a
mixture. There was a
challenge though. I threw
in a mystery material.
They didnt know what the
th
4 material in their mixture
was even though they
made the mixtures. In the
process of separating their
mixtures they had to try to
uncover what this mystery
material was.

The students had to use

We spent some time
prior knowledge, problem
discussing what engineers
solving skills and
do and how when creating teamwork to interpret the
their designs they acted in information they collected.
similar ways to engineers. We also worked on writing
numerical expressions
Math
using appropriate
In math, the students
operation words. This has
learned the importance of
proven tricky. The
other grouping symbols
students had a lot of fun
when evaluating
solving a challenging
expressions. They had
expression puzzle where
the opportunity to work
they had to interpret
through a complex task
numerical expressions
with a Harry Potter theme. without evaluating them,
the opposite of what we
have been doing.

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER

Monday 10/31
Halloween Parade

Wednesday 11/11
Veterans Day
-No school

Questions to Ask Your Child

.

1.
2.
3.
Phone:
(224)-765-3674

E-Mail:
rpurse@nssd112.org

4.
5.

Twitter handle:
@purseplace4

6.
7.

8.

9.

What did you do in art, gym, music, and

tree house this week?
What is a story mountain?
What did you do in Genius Hour with post-it
notes this week? Do you think you have a
project idea?
What is an essential question?
How can you separate a mixture? What did
your group design to separate a mixture
with a mystery material in it?
What did you do to assess your own writing
this week?
Have you had a writing conference with Ms.
Purse yet? If what did you talk about? If
not when are you meeting with her?
In A School Story, what did Natalie value?
What lengths did she go to, to protect that
value? (What did she do?)
Which animal did you think was most
interesting at our assembly?