March 10-14

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Team Blowey has finished filling up my heart!  Tomorrow, they may bring in one special stuffed animal from home as a buddy for the day.  If you have any questions,  please let me know!

Spring conferences are coming right up!  I will be sending home a sign-up sheet in totes on Thursday. Conferences will take place Tuesday, March 25 through Thursday, March 27.  Please send your conference sign-up sheet back to me by Wednesday, March 19th!  Once I have scheduled your conference, you will receive a confirmation note and/or email from me.  

Wednesday is an early release day!  Please plan accordingly!

Homework packets are due on THURSDAY!  Please remind your child to put their homework packet in their backpack on Wednesday evening.  Remember, no homework packet = no free choice Friday!

This Thursday, we will be taking our spring pictures!  

On Friday,  we will have an assembly with Dr. Harvey!  More information to come.

We still have more spaces for mystery readers!  If you or someone you know would like to sign up, please let me know!

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We are working with r-controlled vowels with the spelling patterns /er/, /ir/, and /ur/.  Here are our focus words:  churn, hurt, burst, turn, skirt, stir, sir, clerk, term, and herd.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  wider, saddest, balance, deserted, freezes, and imagine.  We'll define these words and build connections to them.  Then, we'll search for them in the short story called Bill Helps Geese Survive by Anthony Estes.  

Comprehension:  We will focus on cause and effect.  The effect is what happened in the story and the cause is why something happened in the story.  For example. the main character used an umbrella (effect) because it was raining (cause).  We'll practice this skill while we read Goose's Story by Cari Best.  

Grammar:  This week, we'll work with helping verbs.  Has and have are helping verbs.  These are words that help to show an action.  We use has when the subject is singular.  We use have when the subject is plural, I, or you.  For example:

My sister has learned a lot about camels.

Camels have lived in the desert for a long time.

Writing:  Team Blowey has already decided who they will be studying for our biography projects!  This week will be focused on gathering information from multiple stories.  We are searching for when our famous person is born, when they died (if applicable), what they are famous for, three important facts from their life, and one really interesting book. 

Math:  Beginning at the end of last week, we started a very cool project that ties in reading, social studies, and place value.  As a group, we read the story called Listen to the Wind by Greg Mortensen.  Some of you might be familiar with the adult version of the story, Three Cups of Tea.  In the story, Dr. Greg tries to climb the mountains of Pakistan, but ends up getting very sick.  He wanders into the village of Korphe, were the people there help to take care of him.  In return, Dr. Greg promises to help them build a school.  It was this promise that started the Pennies for Peace Organization.  This organization gathers pennies to help build schools in countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan.  Team Blowey was very interested to read about and see how our school compared to the schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan.  We had some differences, but we also had a lot of similarities.  To check out more about this organization, head to their website!   Here is the address:  www.penniesforpeace.org.  

Our project takes what we learned from the book, the Pennies for Peace Organization, our money unit, and our place value unit and puts it all together.  We are creating a book that will tell about Dr. Greg and the village of Korphe, but also a book that helps to teach key place value concepts.  Team Blowey is using the number of pennies collected by another school to teach these concepts.  Using the number 527, we will show that we know how to write the number in standard form, expanded form, and in words.  Team Blowey will also show that we understand the hundreds, tens, and ones place as well as skip counting by fives, tens, and hundreds.  When the book is complete, we'll be able to use it to teach others about Korphe, money, and place value!

Scholastic News:  This week's issue will be about a bird called the cassowary.  We'll learn all kinds of facts about this interesting bird.  Then, we'll use a graphic of the cassowary's life cycle to answer questions.

Read Aloud:  We are almost done with our adventure with the Big Friendly Giant!  We took a short break today to read A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon to help us review how to identify story elements.  We talked about the title, characters, setting, plot, problem, solution, and the moral of the story.  We loved this interesting story!  Ask your child about it today!