May 27-30

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Field Day has been postponed to Tuesday, June 10 instead of today due to inclement weather.

Remember the LAST HOMEWORK PACKET of the year will be due on Thursday!  Please remind your child to put it in their backpack on Wednesday evening.

Calling all paper towel rolls and toilet paper rolls!  Please send whatever you have at home.  We'll need it for the finishing touches on our wildlife biologist project.

HUGE thank you to all of you who were able to send in modeling clay for us to use!  We truly appreciate your generosity!  

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We are working with r-controlled vowels.  Here are the new patterns we are practicing:  /ar/, /are/ and /air/.  Our focus words are:  star, dare, shark, hair, care, pair, stare, chair, rare, and fair.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are creating, memories, familiar, imagination, glamorous, and occasions.  We'll define them and build connections to them.  Then, we'll search for them in the short story called Making Stories Happen.  

Comprehension:  This week we will focus on drawing conclusions.  This means we will make decisions about the text based on the pictures and the words and what we already know.  We'll do this while we read Stirring Up Memories by Pam Munoz Ryan.

Writing:  We are putting the finishing touches on our animal report final drafts.  We have been challenging ourselves to write in paragraphs!  Whenever we introduce a new idea, we have a new paragraph.  A new paragraph always starts on a new line.  There is always an indent at the beginning of the paragraph.  We'll also be creating a colorful, neat, and detailed cover page!

Grammar:  We will be working with articles.  Articles are "a" and "an".  We use "a" before a word that starts with a consonant sound and "an" before a word with a vowel sound.  For example:  a story, a cat, a firefighter, an apple, an ending, an umbrella.

Math:  We will continue our flexible groups for adding and subtracting within 100 with a focus on word problems.  We will also work on odd and even numbers, arrays, and measurement.  

Science:  We are continuing to use our weather tools to gather information about the daily weather.  We are tracking the temperature, air pressure, wind speed, wind direction, and amount of precipitation.  

May 19-23

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Tonight is the Spring Concert!  It will begin at 6 p.m. at the GNG Middle School.  I hope to see everyone there!

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

Mrs. Thibodeau will be coming to our classroom this week!  We will be watching the good touch/bad touch video that you received information about.  If you would like more information, please contact Mrs. Thibodeau.  

CALLING ALL SHOEBOXES!  We will be needing shoeboxes to create diaramas of our animal habitats.  Please send in one shoebox for you child.  If you have any extras that you would like to send in, that would be great!  Please send them in by Friday May 23.  I’ll send home a paper reminder as well tomorrow.  

CLASSROOM WISHLIST:  We will be needing molding clay for our animal projects.  If you are willing and able to donate some molding clay to our classroom, it would be greatly appreciated!  Please send in any donations by Friday, May 23.  

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We are working with the /j/ sound with the spelling patterns -dge, -ge, -lge, -nge, and -rge.  Here are our focus words:  cage, page, judge, lodge, large, barge, bulge, change, range, and hinge.  

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  menu, fetch, forgetting, simmered, assembled, and devoured.  We will define these words and build connections to them. Then, we will listen for them in the short story called Bobo’s Celebration by Keith Fish.

Comprehension:  We will be focusing on story elements.  We’ll be searching for the title, characters, setting, plot, problem, solution, and moral.  We will practice this skill while we read Mice and Beans by Pam Munoz Ryan.  

Grammar:  This week’s focus will be on adjectives.  Adjectives are words that describe a noun.  

Writing:  We are working on completing our rough drafts of our animal reports.  Once Team Blowey finishes their rough drafts, they will be rereading their work to look for areas where they can revise and edit.  For example, they are making sure they have complete sentences that are interesting and focused on the topic.  They will be looking for capital letters where they belong and correct ending punctuation.  They will also be looking for any words that they could change to make their writing more interesting.

Math:  We will continue our flexible math groups where students will be practicing adding and subtracting within 100 with a focus on word problems.  We will also continue our work with measurement, time, money, and math facts.  My hope is to also incorporate our last couple math standards into the mix.  The last few standards are:

Students will be able to:

-Identify numbers as odd or even and write a doubles number sentence       to represent an even number (equal teams) or a near doubles number sentence to represent on odd number (unequal teams).  

-Write a repeated number addition sentence to find out the total number               of squares in an array.  This is the foundation for multiplication.

Science:  This week, we will begin using the weather tools that we built to track the weather.  We will be using a thermometer, anemometer, barometer, rain gauge, and a wind vane.  By the end of our experiment, Team Blowey should demonstrate understanding that weather changes everyday.

I hope everyone has a lovely week!

May 5-9

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Please remember to send your child to school with a jacket or sweatshirt!  Morning recess and even afternoon recess have been somewhat chilly recently.  Like I say to the team... better to have more of what you need than not enough!  

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

From now on, you can expect for Team Blowey to have P.E. outside. Please remember to send your child to school with appropriate footwear on Mondays!

This week in...

Phonics:  This week we are working with silent letters!  We will be practicing words with silent k, g, w, and b.  Here are our focus words:  knee, knife, knot, gnaw, sign, wrist, wren, thumb, lamb, and debt.

Vocabulary:  Here are our new words:  blooming, prickly, muscles, aroma, scent, and trade.  We will define these words and build connection to them.  Then, we’ll search for them in the short story called City Garden by Roberta Salazar.

Comprehension:  This week we will be working on identifying the sequence of events.  We will use the words first, then, next, and last to help us show the sequence of the story.  We’ll practice this skill while we read the story called The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin.

Grammar:  This week, we will be focusing on pronoun-verb agreement.  A present-tense verb must agree with the pronoun in the subject part of the sentence.  If the pronouns he, she, and it are in the subject part of the sentence, we would add -s to most action verbs to form the present tense.

For example:

She weeds the garden.  (weed-weeds)
He brings the hose.  (bring-brings)

Writing:  Team Blowey will start collecting information for their animal research projects.  Today, we chose the animal we wanted to study.  Tomorrow, we will begin reading for information about what our animal looks like, where it lives, what it eats, and some interesting facts.  

Math:  We are continuing our flexible groups for adding and subtracting within 100 with a focus on word problems.  On the days where we are not doing flexible groups, we will be working on time, money, and math facts.  At the end of the week, we will also continue to explore the world of measurement.  We’ll be reviewing what tools we use when we measure things and how to use the tools appropriately.  

Animal Research:  To help model the animal research project, Team Blowey will be studying Penguins as a whole group.  First, we will read a book about penguins identifying some important penguin vocabulary such as waddle or colony.  Next, we will read the same book again searching for information about what penguins look like, what they eat, where they live, and some interesting facts.  Then, we will talk about the different types of penguins we read about.  From there, the team will be divided into groups who will find out more information about the specific types of penguins we read about.  They will find out where their kind of penguin lives, what it eats, its size, and an interesting fact.  Using the information they were able to gather, they will create a life-size drawing of that kind of penguin to be displayed out in the hallway along with the facts they were able to find.  

Severe Weather Alert:  To enhance our weather unit, Team Blowey will be studying types of severe weather in small groups.  We will be studying floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, volcanoes, earthquakes, and thunderstorms.  With their small group, Team Blowey will find information about the kind of severe weather they are studying.  From there, they will use that information to develop a poster that can be used to teacher others about that kind of weather.  At the end of the week, we will present these posters to each other.  During the presentations, we will be developing a list of safety tips that we should know when it comes to dealing with severe weather.  My hope is that we will soon be able to share these posters with some other classrooms as well.