October 22nd-26th

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Homework packets are due tomorrow!  Please send them in, completed, showing me how your child practiced their goals at home this week.

Remember these are the minimum requirements for you child to be doing at home:  Practice your spelling words twice a week, math facts twice a week, reading for 20 minutes everyday!  The hungry to learn homework is optional and for those who wish to make their brains grow faster and in different ways!

Here are the things on IXL that your student could be practicing:

Math Facts:  L.1-5

Graphing (review):  R. 2, 3, 6, 7

Time:  Q. 1-5, 7, 8

Geometry:  T. 1-3

Fractions:  U. 1-4

Make sure you sign in to IXL so I can monitor your child's struggles and progress.  It helps me better meet their needs as a learner here in the classroom.

Remember to send your child in with a healthy snack!  We want food that will help our brains stay energized!  Water bottles may be sent in daily and students may keep them on their desk so that they can stay hydrated throughout the day.

Our new read aloud book is Flat Stanley by Jeff Brown which means we will be flattening ourselves very soon and sending ourselves all over the place!  By the end of the week, I will be sending home some papers so that you can write down the name and address of a friend or a family member that lives somewhere else.  Then, your child will be writing a friendly letter to them and sending their flat selves so that we can look all about some of our world's amazing places!  If you do not have any friends or family members that are willing and able to participate in this project, please let me know and I will find an alternative address for your child.  If you have any questions, please let me know!

Last Thursday, the students had a chance to visit the Portland Museum of Art.  While we were there, they gave all of us a "Member for a Moment" offer.  With the ticket that was sent home, you get free admission for two (Children under 12 are free) and a 10% discount in the Museum Store and Museum Cafe.  Unfortunately, I don't believe this offer allows you to visited the ticketed events like the Winslow Homer exhibit, but the rest of the museum is definitely worth it!  The students had a great time trying to think of all of the stories behind the artwork.  Take them to the museum and let them share their thoughts with you!  The offer expires on June 30, 2013.

This week in...

Phonics:  We are studying the long and short /u/ sound.  We practiced sounding out, sorting, and spelling the following words:  bud, dude, rude, rule, fume, duck, sun, bump, cup, and cube.  

Vocabulary:  Our new vocabulary words are:  drowns, drifts, desert, gently, burst, and neighbor.  We'll be figuring out what these words mean and building connections to them.  Then, we'll search for them in a story called Plant Power by Bradley Roberts.

Comprehension:  We are going to continue to practice our summarizing skills, which means retelling only the most important parts of a story.  We will also practice drawing conclusions about a story.  We'll do this by using what we know, clues in the story, and picture clues.  Being able to draw conclusions helps us to understand the story better.  We'll practice these things while reading The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle.

Grammar:  We're going to try and put our grammar minds on overdrive this week!  We're going to try and use our writer's eyes to help us find nouns (people, places, or things), use commas to separate three or more words in a series, look for capital letters at the beginning of a sentence and punctuation at the end of a sentence!  Together, we'll work to find the nouns, insert commas, fix capital letters, and add punctuation to a short passage.

Daily 5 and CAFE:  Students are still practicing each of the daily 5 during their language arts goal time.  For this week, we will not be adding any new strategies to the CAFE board but we will spend some time reviewing the ones we already have up.

Math:  We are nearing the end of our geometry standard.  Students will be working hard to complete any remaining goals they have in geometry and then complete a geometry assessment.  Tomorrow, we will be taking a pre-test on fractions to see where all of the students will start.  On Wednesday, we will unpack the following standard:

MA.02.G.01.03

Partition circles and rectangles into two, three, or four equal shares, describe the shares using words like halves, thirds, half of, third of, etc. and describe the whole as two halves, three thirds, four fourths.  Recognize that equal shares of identical wholes need not have the same shape.

Students will be given a checklist specific to their goals to use with the fraction menu. When they are able to demonstrate all things on the checklist, they will be able to do a fraction assessment.

Social Science and Read Aloud:  Since our new read aloud book is Flat Stanley  by Jeff Brown, we will be introducing the topic of maps!  Flat Stanley is an ordinary boy who gets flattened by a bulletin board.  The book tells us of his adventures, including mailing himself all the way to California!  Students will be creating their own flat selves and writing a friendly letter to someone who lives outside of Gray, Maine.  We'll be looking at maps to see where all of our teammates travel!  Along with this, we'll have the chance to learn a lot about other places like the climate, the landmarks, and much more!

Words to THINK about:  I know I posted it already, but I figured I would post it again just because it is such an important message!  Don't let the things you CAN'T do stop you from doing the things that you CAN do!