Weekly Update: January 14th-18th

Lemme

Leopards

Hi Parents,

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend. We took all three of the boys bowling for the first time last night. They had a blast, although Cooper(almost 2) simply wanted to kick the ball and couldn't quite grasp the concept of rolling the bowling ball. It was pretty comical, thank goodness for the bumper lanes!!! It was nice to have an enjoyable night together as a family.

Language Arts:

This past week students read the informational text, The Albertosaurus Mystery: Philip Currie's Hunt in the Badlands. Students practiced the comprehension skill of drawing conclusions.  Our Essential Question was: How can you figure out ideas the author doesn't state directly? The students really enjoyed learning about the discovery of dinosaur fossils, places they were found, what scientists found them, and what type of fossils were found. On Friday, students shared their favorite page from their small group reader with another peer. The students had good discussions and were full of questions for one another.

Grammar and Writing:

This week we focus on adjectives and articles such as a and an. We also learned about the suffix -ly. Student learned that they should add -ly when you describe the way something happens or the way someone or something looks.

Ex. Suddenly, without warning, a storm blew across the town.

How does it happen? Suddenly

In writing, we have been working on Persuasive writing. We have been working on a class letter to Mrs. Martinez, persuading her to let the students have an extra five minutes of recess in the afternoon. We made sure to start with a clear topic sentence stating our opinion, followed by three strong reasons to support our opinion. We will finish our letter with our closing this week. Students will then have an opportunity to write their own, they may even choose to write to you, trying to convince you to do something.

Spelling:  This weeks spelling words focused on words with /j/ sound with a g followed by e, i, or y and the /s/ sound with a c followed by e, i, or y. 

Math:Students will receive their Unit 6 test on Tuesday. Please sign and return this as soon as possible. This week students have been reviewing past concepts from this year, in particular we have focused on the addition algorithms. We have focused on the partial sums algorithm and the traditional (standard) algorithm. I have encourage students to choose the method that works best for them and stick with it. We will review subtraction next week as well. The following link is helpful resource to help gain a better understanding of the algorithms.

https://www.everydaymathonline.com/free_resources_main.html?frnologin=1&PHPSESSID=3b949d56ee050c496e9518d5df8a9194#

Social Studies

We began Chapter 4: Communities and Beyond of our book titled Social Studies Alive!  Students have learned about the reasons why immigrates came to America long ago and the difficult journey that they endured. We have had the chance to explore some interactive websites like the one listed below. I told students I would include it in my blog if they wanted a chance to visit it again with you.

http://www.tenement.org/immigrate/

Reminders:

Parent/Teacher Conferences: Please sign up for a spring conference time if you have not had a chance to do so. Also, for those of you that have signed up for a time, double check to make sure that time still works for you. If the times that are available do not work for you, please let me know so we can rearrange another date/time. Thanks!

Donations: We would love for all of the students in our class to have a 1" binder to replace their current Leopard Books. These binders hold the planners better as well as papers and folders. Please let me know if you are willing to donate some binders, we only need five more at then every student will have them. Thanks so much to Mrs. Cheatum and Mrs. Greving for your donations.

Also, if you have some books that your child has read and you would like to find a new home for them, our classroom would love them. Students are always excited to get new books!

Optimist Good Reader Program: This week I took time to check in with most students to see how they were coming with their reading and summaries. In the classroom, each student has a hanging file in a crate that holds their Optimist Reading Packets, bookmarks they have created, and the summaries that they have written. I am taking time to read through their summaries and ask them questions about their reading. I am then signing off in their packet. Please feel free to check in with your child about their reading and their summaries.