// Curriculum Update: First Week in December //

In Writers Workshop, we finished up our non-fiction small moment stories and started right way on our new unit.  This time we will be writing a fiction story and have been discussing the different kind fiction pieces we are familiar with.  We discussed fables, fairytales, folktales and series of books.  The children are encouraged to come up with their own entertaining story or series of stories in the vein of Aesop’s Fables or The Frog and Toad series.  The children are excited to create fun new characters and share their stories.  

For our cultural studies the first levels learned about MRS. GREF, the characteristics of living things.  Ask your student to tell you what it stands for!  They then looked at a collection of items from the park and explained if they were living, once living or non-living.  The second graders went a little more in-depth with this by giving more detailed descriptions of the characteristics.  The third graders begin their biology study by learning about the different domains and kingdoms. Since we learned about the types of rocks last week we built upon this by studying volcanoes.  We learned the parts of a volcano and function of those parts.  

Finally our 3rd levels had the opportunity to visit an Upper Elementary classroom this week.  They were able to spend time in the morning work cycle and also what the Readers Workshop looks like.  They will get another opportunity to visit again later in the year.