We finished our writing unit "Looking Closely: Writing Like Scientists" last week by reading our books to the PreK4 classes. As a class we discussed the fact that authors write for a purpose and we looked at the purpose of our plant books, which was to teach others how to grow and take care of plants. We then agreed that a great audience to share with would be the PreK students as they may not know how to grow plants. We then emailed the teachers to ask if we could come in, and after receiving positive replies we proudly read our books.
Our new writing unit focuses on pattern books. Throughout this unit we will examine many different types of pattern books and what various authors have chosen to do to make their books enjoyable for readers. We will then write our own books to share with others.
Our new Unit of Inquiry is all about systems. This word was unknown to all the students so we spent the week looking at different systems and figuring out the commonalities between them. The students shared deep thinking while trying to figure out what a "system" was and we finally reached the conclusion that a system is interconnected parts that work together to accomplish something. We will spend more time studying how different systems work and then focus on systems in our own communities.
