April 29-May 3

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

I will not be at school Wednesday, May 1.   I will be unable to check my email all day so if you need to get any messages to your child or the school (especially regarding transportation) please email them to Connie Holland at cholland@sad15.org.  She will direct your messages to whom they may concern.  You may also choose to send in a hand written note.

Homework packets are due tomorrow!

Spring Concert is tomorrow night at 6 pm at GNG middle school!  Hope to see you there!

Please remember to send a sweatshirt with your child to school.  Although the weather has started to warm up, the mornings can be pretty chilly, especially when the wind is blowing!  Better to be safe than chilly!

For an upcoming project, I'm hoping that some of you will be able to send in paper towel or toilet paper rolls, after they are empty of course!  We will only be needing the cardboard tube.  If you have any that you would like to send in, please send them to school with your child!  Thank you!

IXL:

The biggest focus should be on anything under letters G or H.  Students may also practice A. 4 and 5.

Here are some extensions:

Add  or subtract 10 or 100 to a three-digit number in my head:  G. 1, H. 1, I. 1, J. 1.

Add up to four two-digit numbers:  G. 13

Add or subtract three-digit numbers:  anything under I or J

Understanding the relationship between addition and subtraction:  anything under K.

This week in...

Phonics:  We are working with the hard and soft c sounds as well as the hard and soft g sounds.  The hard c sound sounds like "cuh" (example:  candy).  The soft c sound sounds like "s" (example: celebrate).  The hard g sounds like "guh" (example:  go).  The soft g sounds like "juh" (example:  general).  Here are our words:  cave, camp, cent, girl, gift, gem, gym, wagon, face, and germ.

Vocabulary:  Here are our words:  footprint, surface, spacecraft, lunar, discovered, and visible.  

Comprehension:  This week we will practice summarizing as we read to find out more about the moon!  We'll be reading The Moon by Seymour Simon.  As we read, we'll check in with each other and talk about the things that we are learning to help us summarize.  We'll be learning lots of things about the moon such as what it looks like, what it's made out of, the first exploration of the moon, and more!  

Writing:  Students will be working on finishing up our poetry unit.  This week we'll write cinquains and diamantes.  A cinquain is a five line poem that follows this pattern:

Line 1:

one word (subject or noun)

Line 2:

two words (adjectives) that describe line 1

Line 3:

three words (action verbs) that relate to line 1

Line 4:

four words (feelings or a complete sentence) that relates to line 1

Line 5:

one word (synonym of line 1 or a word that sums it up)

Diamante poems are poems that follow this pattern:

Noun
Adjective, Adjective
Verb, Verb, Verb
Noun, Noun, Noun, Noun
Verb, Verb, Verb
Adjective, Adjective
Noun

From poetry4kids.com:

In a synonym diamante, the nouns at the beginning and end are two words that mean basically the same thing. In an antonym diamante, the two nouns are opposites. Here are a couple of examples:

Synonym Diamante

In this diamante, the words “Monsters” and “Creatures” mean the same thing, so they are synonyms.

Monsters
Evil, Spooky
Howling, Shrieking, Wailing
Ghosts, Vampires, Goblins, Witches
Flying, Scaring, Terrifying
Creepy, Crawly
Creatures

Antonym Diamante

In this diamante, you might say that the words “Cat” and “Dog” are opposites, or “antonyms,” so this is an antonym diamante.

Cat
Gentle, Sleepy
Purring, Meowing, Scratching
Whiskers, Fur, Collar, Leash
Barking, Licking, Digging
Slobbery, Playful
Dog

Students will also be beginning their tall tales to integrate into our weather unit!  Students will be making their thinking maps to outline their stories.  These thinking maps will get Team Blowey to think about the characters, setting, problem, events, solution, and the ending of the story.  They will use these thinking maps to create their own "Cloudy with a Chance of _____________" stories.

Math:

We are continuing to work on solving word problems involving two-digit addition and subtraction with unknowns in all positions.  Our focus is on being able to learn how to use multiple tools to solve the same problem.  Please refer to previous posts for more of an explanation about the word problems and the tools.

Science:

This week, students will be observing the clouds.  They will identify the types of clouds they see, and then make a prediction about the day's weather.  We are also beginning to use the weather tools that Team Blowey worked to create last week.  Here are some pictures of the tools along with some of the sayings we use to help us remember what these tools do:

Anemometer... to measure wind speed:

"Anemometer... spins like a top... how fast is the wind blowing... and when will it stop?"

Barometer... to measure atmospheric pressure:

"Rising barometer... SUNNY!  Falling barometer, RAINY!"

Rain Gauge... to measure rainfall:

"Rain gauge... bloop, bloop, bloop, overflowing... FLOOD!"

***no picture since it's outside ready and waiting to collect rain!

Wind Vane... to observe wind direction:

Using our hands as the arrows, we spin around (making wind sounds) and say the directions, "North, East, South, and West!"

We are also beginning our Animal Research Projects.  This week, students will decide on an animal they would like to study and begin taking notes on what the animal looks like, what the animal eats, where the animal lives, and some other interesting facts.  We'll also be discussing how we classify animals into mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians,  insects, or fish.  We'll start by deciding on an animal that we would like to study as a whole class.  From there, I will model note taking skills emphasizing how important it is to organize your information!  When our research is finished we will be working on writing a report where they will have to start with a green topic sentence to tell me what their report will be about followed by some interesting facts, a yellow idea sentence (about what it looks like, eats, or where it lives), followed by two red details sentences, and a green concluding sentence.  Here the example of the report my class from last year helped me write:

Beluga Whales

      Beluga whales are fascinating animals!  They are born gray or brown but then fade to white when they are about five years old.  Beluga whales live in small groups called pods.  They communicate with each other with clicks, whistles, and clangs.   Now, I'd like to share some more facts about the beluga whale.

     First, beluga whales are a smaller kind of whale and only range between 13 and 20 feet long.  They are distinguishable from other whales because of their white blubber!  They also have no dorsal fin and rounded foreheads.

     Next, beluga whales are mammals that live in the ocean.  You will most likely find them in the coastal waters of the Arctic Ocean.  When the water starts to freeze over, they migrate southward.

    Last, beluga whales are carnivores.  They eat octopus, squid, crabs, and other bottom-dwelling animals.  They don't chew their food though!  They swallow it whole!

     In conclusion, the beluga whale is one of the most interesting animals to study.

This kind of writing is also one of the complex reasoning skills that I learned about at the complex reasoning workshop I attended.  It really gets students to think critically when they are asked to provide evidence for what they are saying (i.e. a yellow idea sentence, following by two red detail sentences.

Computer Lab:  We are continuing to practice our typing skills!  Every Tuesday, we'll be heading to the library for 30 minutes so that we can practice specific keys on the keyboard, but also to do some fun projects that involve typing!

Book Buddies:  We'll be working with our book buddies this week!  We are still practicing good buddy qualities such as being respectful to peers and adults, being good listeners, and being good friends.  At the same time, we're practicing our literacy skills!

As always, please let me know if you have any questions, comments, or insights!