YUM! YUM! SNOWMEN!!!!

Parents,

 The snowmen must have melted before they made it home to you so here are a few pics for you to enjoy. Thanks again to Mrs. Kucera and Mrs. Michelson for volunteering their time and donating the supplies to make these yummy snowmen! The students loved them!!                                                                       

Sorry, this picture is so blurry:(

Weekly Update: December 3rd-7th

Lemme

Leopards

Hi Parents,

As I am writing this, I am seeing the first snowflakes of this winter fall from the sky. My boys are thrilled about this as they have been talking about it for weeks. I hope you are having a great weekend!

Language Arts:

This past week students read the informational text, Aero and Officer Mike. Students practiced the comprehensions skills of summarizing and determining author's purpose. We discussed the four main reasons authors write; to entertain, to persuade, to express feelings/thoughts, and to inform. We also spent large/small group time summarizing parts of the text we were reading. When summarizing, we focus on telling the important parts of the text in our own words. We also differentiate the difference between retelling and summarizing.

Grammar and Writing:
This week's focus is an extension of last week's subject-verb agreement.  We are now applying our learning to pronouns and verbs.

We also focused on the prefixes im- and in- which mean not. It was important for students to see that a prefix can help us determine the meaning of unknown/new words.

Examples: incomplete-not complete    imperfect-not perfect

Spelling: This past weeks' spelling words had the /är/ sound spelled with ar and the /ôr/ sound spelled with the letters or or ore.

Math: Students will be taking their Unit 5 Math Progress Check on Wednesday, December 12th. Students should be bringing home a review sheet on Monday, December 10th. The challenge this unit has been students learning the place value of decimals. This is a concept that we will come back to again throughout the rest of the school year. 

Science: This past week students observed surface tension by seeing how many drops of water could fit on the surface of a penny. We also observed what effect soapy water and salt water has on surface tension, learning that soapy water breaks the barrier and salt water has little to no effect. Students also made their own versions of a thermometer (pictures to come) and watched what happened as their "thermometer" was submerged in hot and cold water.

Reminder: We increased the reading log minutes to 15 minutes a night for a goal of 300 minutes a month. Thanks for your support with this at home, I appreciate it!

Weekly Update:November 26th-30th

Lemme

Leopards

Hi Parents,

I hope you are enjoying your weekend. I have been away from the classroom more than I would like to be this past week. I have attended two science trainings, one on Tuesday and another on Friday. The science trainings provide me with an excellent hands-on experience  to gain a better understanding of what we want to students to learn from each particular science unit. It is great to be able to compare and contrast with the students my learning experience to their own. I will have my last science training this coming Tuesday. I have been very fortunate to have Janet Galbreth(a former Lemme teacher) as my substitute over these past few absences.

Language Arts:

This past week students read the legend, Yonder Mountain. Students practiced the comprehensions skills of comparing(how they are alike) and contrasting(how they are different) the characters within the story.

Grammar and Writing: Subject-verb agreement is our topic this week.  Students learned that if the subject is singular in a present-tense sentence, the verb needs either an -s or an -es added on the end. We also focused on adding -es to verbs that end in -ch,-sh,-s, or-x.

Spelling: This past weeks' spelling words were contractions. Your child will get their spelling test back on Tuesday instead of Monday this week.



Math: Students began Unit 5: Place Value in Whole Numbers and Decimals on Monday, November 26th. In Unit 5, students will review place value up to five digit whole numbers. They will read, write, compare, and order before they begin to explore larger numbers. For real life application, students will study population data about the U.S. cities.

Science: Students began their new unit of study, Water. The Water Unit consists of four investigations in which students explore properties of water, changes in water, interactions between water and other earth materials, and how humans use water. On Wednesday and Friday, students observed how water interacts with four different surface; aluminum foil, a paper towel, a piece of paper, and waxed paper. Students used a dropper to put the water on the four different materials. They had a great time, we didn't realize this was going to be so cool and exciting:) I will be sure to add pictures throughout our science unit.

Reminder:
Reading logs are due Monday, December 3rd. Please help your child total the number of minutes that they read and sign it at the bottom.