Click here for a downloadable pdf of the Thanksgiving Break Homework. As always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the assignment!
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Field Trip this Thursday: Lelooska Cultural Center
We will leave shortly after school starts on Thursday. The forecast is for partly-cloudy with temp in the mid-40s. Even though the dances and storytelling are indoors, it is an unheated space except for a small fire in the middle. Even on some warm May days it is cold inside this longhouse. I can only imagine how chilly it will be in November. Please have your child dress warmly with sensible shoes. We will also be eating lunch at a nearby park that has covered areas in case it is raining during our visit there.
I will be sharing more information about the trip during the week with the class, so be sure to ask questions about the field trip this week. For now, click on the links above and share what you find out with your child!
Classroom News!
Writer’s Workshop
After
researching the social hierarchy of a Chinook village, your child wrote a
biography page for their Chinook character that included a name (based on
Chinuk Wawa “Chinook Talk” ), their social status within the clan, and
clothing.
Having created their character, the students are now
bringing them to life by writing a narrative in which their Chinook person is
the protagonist.
First, we used prewriting activities to focus and
generate ideas for writing our narratives. Students used their Chinook narrative graphic
organizer/planner to sketch, plan and recount the
1. Opening setting and characters
2. Middle events or happenings
3. Ending events and
conclusion
From this organizer and planner, students have been composing their first
draft (drafting) over the past 3-4 workshop sessions.
This week, we’ll be working on extending and reworking their writing
(revising), and then editing and proofreading their work (editing). We may send the editing portion
home as Thanksgiving-break homework depending on how far we get by
Thursday.
We’ve also been learning how to make effective signage – we're working on
making posters for our upcoming Tribal Heritage Night (see below)!
Reader’s Workshop
This week we’ve been using our read-aloud, Kutkos Chinook Tyee, as a mentor text to get ideas for our own Chinook narratives. We’ve also been focused on Native Myths, reading titles like Storm Boy, Raven Returns the Water, The Chinook Origin Myth, and more. We’ve searched for the themes embedded in these stories and found some amazing connections between the myths, and to our own scientific understandings of nature.
As our Chinook salmon eggs began hatching into alevins this week
(so magical and exciting!), we dug into some nonfiction to learn more about
this important stage in the life cycle. After reading two different texts about the alevin
stage, students compared and
contrasted the most important points and key details presented in each
source.
Math
This week we continued to focus on double-digit subtraction. So
far the kids have developed and practiced four strategies: the standard
algorithm (aka borrowing or regrouping- the way that most of us learned), using
Base Ten pieces, subtracting away “chunks” at a time, and using an open number
line.
Here is a video I made for you and your child to review these
different strategies- I highly recommend watching it together for a quick review:
Eventually, we encourage all kids to go for that borrowing algorithm (most efficient) - but we don't want to push it if they're not ready. I am encouraging them to solve the
problems two ways in order to check work and solidify conceptual understanding.
Chinook
We read and researched nonfiction texts to learn about Chinook social roles, Chinook words, and the types of clothing worn depending on seasonality or social standing.
We had an amazing field study visiting the Cathlapotle Plankhouse
on the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge!
It was a huge learning experience for our kids to compare and contrast
what they had learned thus far about Northwest Coastal Indian homes, what they
had built from mere shoeboxes here in the classroom – with this life-size plankhouse
replica erected by the Chinook Nation. There were many “a-ha!” moments, many connections made
to their prior knowledge, and many new questions evoked. We completed a giant Venn-diagram
here in the classroom reflecting on the similarities and differences.
We also learned that we will be co-hosting a Tribal Heritage Night
here at Sauvie Island Academy on Thursday December 12! The kids are VERY excited that
members from the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde will visit and teach in our
classroom, as well as co-hosting the evening educational event open to the
public.
Wapato Field Study
It was a wet one last week! Students practiced their Core
Routine of the Secret Sit-Spot (building stamina for sitting quietly and
mindfully, honing nature observation skills). Students also worked in groups recording observations and
data from different habitat areas in the park. We also learned more information about indigenous uses of
some native plants with a short, student-led “each one teach one” hike.
Parent-Teacher Conferences
Have you confirmed your conference time? If not, call the office to schedule time with me as soon as possible. I look forward to meeting with you! During our time together, we will discuss your child’s academics (emphasis on reading and math) and behavior - looking at their strengths, needs, and suggestions for action both at school and at home.
Important Things Coming Up...
Nov. 21 - Chief Lelooska Field Trip (sack lunches needed)
Nov. 25-26 - Parent-Teacher Conferences (no school)
Nov. 27-29 - Thanksgiving Break (no school)
That’s it! Hope you had a wonderful weekend!
Asa
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
Thursday December 12 - Tribal Heritage Education Night at Sauvie Island Academy!
At 6:30pm on Thursday, December 12th, 2013, tribal members from the
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and our third graders from Sauvie Island
Academy will host a Tribal Cultural Heritage Education Night in the Sauvie
Island Academy school gymnasium. This event is free and open to the public, and
will provide a wonderful opportunity for the school, island, and nearby communities
to learn more about the first inhabitants of the island, and tribal cultural lifeways.
Organized by Grand Ronde tribal member, cultural consultant, and educator Greg
Archuleta and myself - this event will feature tribal drumming and singing, as well as traditional foods and
cultural demonstrations stations for youth, adults, and families. Stations are slated
to include: traditional paint making with minerals, cordage making (with cattail,
dogbane, cedar), chinuk wawa language basics, necklace making, and tribal history.
Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde and our third graders from Sauvie Island
Academy will host a Tribal Cultural Heritage Education Night in the Sauvie
Island Academy school gymnasium. This event is free and open to the public, and
will provide a wonderful opportunity for the school, island, and nearby communities
to learn more about the first inhabitants of the island, and tribal cultural lifeways.
Organized by Grand Ronde tribal member, cultural consultant, and educator Greg
Archuleta and myself - this event will feature tribal drumming and singing, as well as traditional foods and
cultural demonstrations stations for youth, adults, and families. Stations are slated
to include: traditional paint making with minerals, cordage making (with cattail,
dogbane, cedar), chinuk wawa language basics, necklace making, and tribal history.
Our third graders will be on hand to help out with the event and
share their learning from a recent in-depth unit on Chinookan peoples. They will
display their diorama of a Chinookan plankhouse village, classroom work, as well as the classroom
aquarium in which they are raising Chinook salmon eggs for release in the wild.
Greg Archuleta and I met in 2012 at a workshop on Native Uses of
Pacific NW Plants he taught at Portland Nursery. A conversation began to
plan an event that would fulfill the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde’s efforts to
preserve and perpetuate the cultural heritage of the original tribes of the Grand
Ronde community through educational outreach, as well as Sauvie Island
Academy’s mission to bridge classrooms and communities through Place Based
Education.
share their learning from a recent in-depth unit on Chinookan peoples. They will
display their diorama of a Chinookan plankhouse village, classroom work, as well as the classroom
aquarium in which they are raising Chinook salmon eggs for release in the wild.
Greg Archuleta and I met in 2012 at a workshop on Native Uses of
Pacific NW Plants he taught at Portland Nursery. A conversation began to
plan an event that would fulfill the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde’s efforts to
preserve and perpetuate the cultural heritage of the original tribes of the Grand
Ronde community through educational outreach, as well as Sauvie Island
Academy’s mission to bridge classrooms and communities through Place Based
Education.
Save the date!
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Harvest Festival this Saturday!
Sauvie Island Academy's first annual
Harvest Festival
Saturday, November 2 from 12-4 pm at
Sauvie Island Academy
14445 NW Charlton Road
Sauvie Island Academy
14445 NW Charlton Road
Please join us for food, games, music, door prizes, and other harvest festivities as we celebrate the season!
Hosted by the 7th Grade Foods class
Admission
to this event is free, however we do request that you donate 1 can of
food per family. All donations will be given to the Oregon Food Bank
The
7th grade Foods class has worked so hard to put together an amazing
event. Please come support our school and the community. Hope to see
you there!
Don't forget to stop by the Sauvie Island Fire Department tonight for Trick or Treat!
Dark until 8:00pm.
.JPG)
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Classroom News!
Hello and Happy Halloween! Here is what we've been working on in the third grade these last 10-12 days:
Math
We are two weeks in to our second unit, working with place-value structures and multi-digit computation. In this unit, students are working on how to:
• read, write, order, model, compare, and identify the place value of digits in numbers to 999
• estimate and calculate sums (addition) of 2-digit numbers with and without regrouping (i.e., carrying)
• estimate and calculate differences (subtraction) between 2 -digit numbers with and without regrouping (i.e., borrowing)
• estimate and measure length in both inches and centimeters
• continue to master basic addition and subtraction facts. Try these games for additional practice:
The pre-assessment for this unit was very helpful in showing the gaps in kids' understanding of place-value, and is guiding current instruction. Working with Base-Ten pieces, the class is composing and decomposing various two and three digit numbers at a variety of challenge levels, looking carefully at the connections between a number's Base-Ten minimal collection and how it is written numerically. We've also practiced sketching and writing expanded notation (ex: 289 = 200 + 80 + 9).
It is important that students have an iron-clad understanding of place-value. They must be able to mentally round to the nearest ten or hundred, and make a preemptive estimate as to what a reasonable answer should look like for a given problem. This way, when they actually solve it, they can know whether or not their answer is reasonable. In class I encourage a variety of strategies for attacking multi-digit problems. They will use number lines, algorithms ("Carrying" or "borrowing"), as well as numerical reasoning. In an example of the latter, we hope that students will be able to see quickly that the difference between 189 and 90 is 99, without going through the time and trouble of performing an algorithm or using a calculator.
Students also practiced estimating, measuring, and graphing lengths of objects in the classroom, their salmon stream drawings - even the circumference of today's pumpkins from the patch!
Writing
Students have finished publishing choice writing pieces, and soon will be working on personal narratives - exploring the structure of a narrative, how to pre-write using a graphic organizer, and make revisions and edits. Over the last few days students have been free-writing in their writer's notebooks, nature journaling outdoors, taking notes on nonfiction texts about Chinook and salmon, and writing comments and thoughts about the current read-aloud both online and in their Reader's Notebooks.
Reading
Last week we read nonfiction about salmon to build up our background knowledge for the Friday trip to Eagle Creek, as well as our class stewardship of the salmon incubation tank. We practiced using nonfiction text features like the table of contents, index, and glossary to find information we needed, as well as how to use text features like headings, bold print, and captions to zoom in on specific facts. Students created thought-maps using the iPad app Popplet to document their thinking as they learned new information:
.JPG)
Read-aloud last week featured a number of realistic fiction, native myth, poetry,
and nonfiction picture books about salmon. I think the kids' favorite
was Salmon Creek, by Annette LeBox and Karen Reczuch (pictured) - the poetic descriptions really matched what we saw on our field trip!
This week, we've launched our read aloud Kutkos - Chinook Tyee by Mildred Colbert. Out of print, this book was written in 1942. Author Mildred Colbert's grandmother was Chinook Amelia Aubichon Petit (featured in the recent book “Legendary Locals of The Long Beach Peninsula” by Sydney Stevens.) Mildred was raised in the historic Colbert house in Ilwaco, Washington and educated at Columbia University. She was a 4th grade teacher in Ilwaco, Washington and Portland, Oregon! She was known as the family historian and very proud of her Chinook heritage.
Social Studies
Our Chinook storyline continues to be highly engaging. Students researched and built a miniature village of Chinook cedar plankhouses, and worked very well collaborating with their "clan" to create a historically accurate diorama based on notes, drawings, and readings from nonfiction texts. Kids had spirited discussions about whether or not to include totem poles, how to build things to scale, what to include inside the home, and more - leading to some authentic problem-solving and application of their learning. Now, students are creating characters to inhabit the village - and in doing so, learning about social status/clan roles as well as the workaday lives and clothing of the Chinook.
Science
Our babies arrived! Hopefully, you have heard all about our Chinook salmon eggs and incubation tank, as well as last Friday's field trip to view the wild Coho salmon spawning at Eagle Creek. At school, the kids will be raising these Chinook salmon eggs until they are fry and ready for release into the wild. The kids did a great job on the field study connecting their observations to their classroom learning as we walked the stream and explored the banks to watch this critical part of the salmon life cycle. Coupling this with the raising of our Chinook salmon eggs in the school incubation tank, these kids will have direct, first-hand experience of the entire salmon life cycle.
Watch this slide-show video of our salmon field study! Thank you for the photos, chaperones!
- Plankhouse field trip next Tuesday Nov. 5 (get those permission slips in!)
-Monthly field study @ Wapato next Thursday Nov. 7 - focus: Native uses of plants
That's the news for now!
Warm regards,
Asa
Math
We are two weeks in to our second unit, working with place-value structures and multi-digit computation. In this unit, students are working on how to:
• read, write, order, model, compare, and identify the place value of digits in numbers to 999
• estimate and calculate sums (addition) of 2-digit numbers with and without regrouping (i.e., carrying)
• estimate and calculate differences (subtraction) between 2 -digit numbers with and without regrouping (i.e., borrowing)
• estimate and measure length in both inches and centimeters
• continue to master basic addition and subtraction facts. Try these games for additional practice:
The pre-assessment for this unit was very helpful in showing the gaps in kids' understanding of place-value, and is guiding current instruction. Working with Base-Ten pieces, the class is composing and decomposing various two and three digit numbers at a variety of challenge levels, looking carefully at the connections between a number's Base-Ten minimal collection and how it is written numerically. We've also practiced sketching and writing expanded notation (ex: 289 = 200 + 80 + 9).
 |
| Click here to try the game "Base Ten Fun" and get some extra practice! :-) |
Students also practiced estimating, measuring, and graphing lengths of objects in the classroom, their salmon stream drawings - even the circumference of today's pumpkins from the patch!
Writing
Students have finished publishing choice writing pieces, and soon will be working on personal narratives - exploring the structure of a narrative, how to pre-write using a graphic organizer, and make revisions and edits. Over the last few days students have been free-writing in their writer's notebooks, nature journaling outdoors, taking notes on nonfiction texts about Chinook and salmon, and writing comments and thoughts about the current read-aloud both online and in their Reader's Notebooks.
Reading
Last week we read nonfiction about salmon to build up our background knowledge for the Friday trip to Eagle Creek, as well as our class stewardship of the salmon incubation tank. We practiced using nonfiction text features like the table of contents, index, and glossary to find information we needed, as well as how to use text features like headings, bold print, and captions to zoom in on specific facts. Students created thought-maps using the iPad app Popplet to document their thinking as they learned new information:
.JPG)
This week, we've launched our read aloud Kutkos - Chinook Tyee by Mildred Colbert. Out of print, this book was written in 1942. Author Mildred Colbert's grandmother was Chinook Amelia Aubichon Petit (featured in the recent book “Legendary Locals of The Long Beach Peninsula” by Sydney Stevens.) Mildred was raised in the historic Colbert house in Ilwaco, Washington and educated at Columbia University. She was a 4th grade teacher in Ilwaco, Washington and Portland, Oregon! She was known as the family historian and very proud of her Chinook heritage.
Social Studies
Our Chinook storyline continues to be highly engaging. Students researched and built a miniature village of Chinook cedar plankhouses, and worked very well collaborating with their "clan" to create a historically accurate diorama based on notes, drawings, and readings from nonfiction texts. Kids had spirited discussions about whether or not to include totem poles, how to build things to scale, what to include inside the home, and more - leading to some authentic problem-solving and application of their learning. Now, students are creating characters to inhabit the village - and in doing so, learning about social status/clan roles as well as the workaday lives and clothing of the Chinook.
Science
Our babies arrived! Hopefully, you have heard all about our Chinook salmon eggs and incubation tank, as well as last Friday's field trip to view the wild Coho salmon spawning at Eagle Creek. At school, the kids will be raising these Chinook salmon eggs until they are fry and ready for release into the wild. The kids did a great job on the field study connecting their observations to their classroom learning as we walked the stream and explored the banks to watch this critical part of the salmon life cycle. Coupling this with the raising of our Chinook salmon eggs in the school incubation tank, these kids will have direct, first-hand experience of the entire salmon life cycle.
Watch this slide-show video of our salmon field study! Thank you for the photos, chaperones!
Reminders, etc.
- Halloween Party Tomorrow (1-8th Grade costume parade at 1:45, followed by a pumpkin-decorating party in the classroom)- Plankhouse field trip next Tuesday Nov. 5 (get those permission slips in!)
-Monthly field study @ Wapato next Thursday Nov. 7 - focus: Native uses of plants
That's the news for now!
Warm regards,
Asa
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