MARCH 17-21

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS

Homework packets are due on Thursday!  Please remind your child to put them their homework packet into their backpacks on Wednesday evening.  Remember... no homework packet = no free choice Friday!

There is still snow and plenty of chilly weather during the month of March.  Please remember to send your child to school with the appropriate winter gear.  They will need their jackets, snow pants, boots, hats, and mittens to be able to play in the snow.

Remember to send a healthy snack to school with your child everyday!  We have time for a quick snack in the afternoon to keep us energized!

Conference sign up papers were sent home with Team Blowey last week.   Please sign them and return them with your top three choices for conference times.  Conferences are set up on a first come, first serve basis.  I will do my best to accommodate everyone’s preferred time for conferences.   All conference sign ups are due by Wednesday, March 19th!  If you have any questions, please let me know!   

This week in...

Phonics:  We are studying the /u/ sound with the spelling patterns /oo/ and /ou/.  Here are our focus words:  shook, stood, hook, brook, crook, foot, soot, could, should, would.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  conservation, remains, trouble, extinct, and hardest.  We will define these words and build connections to them.  Then, we will search for them in the short stories called Prairie Problem and Be Careful!  We’re Almost Gone!

Comprehension:  This week, we will be paying attention to descriptions.  A description tells what something is like.  When we are reading, we might see clue words or phrases like to begin with or here is how.  

Grammar:  We will be studying irregular words.  That means we won’t be able to add -ed to the end of the word to make it past tense.  Here are some examples of irregular verbs:  go becomes went, does becomes did, goes becomes went, does become did.

Writing:  This week, Team Blowey will be working on creating the final draft elements that will go on their Biography Report posters!  They will have to use the research they did to make complete sentences with their very best handwriting.  We will be proofreading for spelling mistakes, checking to make sure we have capital letters where they belong, and of course making sure we have the correct punctuation.  

Math:  This week, we will begin working with some of the place value strategies that we will be using to add and subtract numbers fluently within 100.  My goal is to send home a sheet explaining these strategies so that you and your child will be able to reference them as your child does their homework, whether it be the worksheet that is sent home or the problems on IXL.  While using these strategies, students will also  practice showing all of their work.  This is to help them check their work in case they make a mistake and also to communicate their thinking to me or their peers.  

In class, we will be working with a 100 chart, drawings of base ten blocks, number lines, and breaking numbers down into tens and ones.  

Scholastic News:  We’ll be able to take a visit to Ireland in this week’s issue!  Team Blowey will be reading about Mia, a little girl from Ireland.  We’ll learn about the country of Ireland, some of Mia’s favorite things, and about St. Patrick’s day.  Then, we’ll use a map to answer some questions about Ireland.

Read Aloud:  We are getting ever so close to finishing the BFG!  The tale is keeping us on the edge of our seats.  Soon, we will find out what Sophie, the BFG, and the Queen of England come up with to stop the other giants!  

St. Patrick’s Day Fun:  Today, we read a story called Clever Tom and the Leprechaun.  In the story, Tom is desperate to find the leprechaun’s gold!  He soon finds out that the leprechaun played a trick on him making it almost impossible for him to find.  After reading the story today, Team Blowey had a chance to think about something more valuable than gold... their loved ones!  We wrote a little bit about a person is is worth more than gold to us.  Then, we shared why they were so important to us.


I hope everyone has a LUCKY week!