This Week...

September 29- October 3, 2014

Reading:  Students worked hard applying the problem and solution skill to various texts including The Perfect Pet, and “Pets: True or False”.  Students also read an article about a Texas oil spill.  They highlighted evidence that supported the problem and solution.  Multiple meaning words were discussed and practiced in context.  Diagrams were the text features analyzed this week.  Students learned how diagrams help them understand the meaning of the text. Reading Logs are due Monday, October 6.  (100 minutes)

Math:  We continued practicing function boxes by analyzing patterns and rules.  Number stories were another main focus for the week.  Students worked on solving number stories with the problem solving steps and different diagrams.  Total-part-part, start-change-end, and quantity-quantity-difference were the diagrams students used.  The partial sums addition method was practiced, in addition to the trade-first and counting up method.  The unit 2 test will be Wednesday, October 8.  A review guide will be going home next week.

Social Studies:  At the beginning of the week, students worked hard reviewing for their map skills unit test.  Students also shared their wonderful map projects!  It was very enjoyable to see all the interesting ideas and hard work students put into the projects.  At the end of the week, students learned about mental, pictorial, and physical models.  They made their own physical models of favorite animals using clay.  Next week, we will begin our first science unit: habitats!

Writing:  Students completed their first RA, or revision assignment, which asked them to turn one of their telling sentences into a showing sentence.  They also worked on a new skill: showing!  Students learned to differentiate between telling and showing sentences.  In grammar, we worked on combining sentences to form compound sentences, which included a connecting word and a comma.

Spelling/Cursive: In cursive this week, students practiced the letters “a and j”.  We took our week 5 spelling test.  Next week will be a review week for spelling.  We will not have spelling homework and the test will be multiple-choice.

Miscellaneous:  Congratulations to Giorgio on becoming our student council representative!  October writing words went home this week.  Please keep this list in a safe spot…students will be tested on these words at the end of the month.  We are almost ready to send our Flat Stanleys on their way…we hope to mail them out at the beginning of next week!  Please let me know if you have any questions…have a great weekend!