This Week...

September 12- September 16, 2016

Reading:  We had the opportunity to read a variety of poems, including the book Swirl by Swirl by Joyce Sidman.  We discussed how poetry is beautiful, but can sometimes contain challenging vocabulary.  We focused on strategies that good readers use when they approach difficult words.  Substituting synonyms, using prior knowledge, studying the illustrations for clues, and using context clues are just a few of the strategies students practiced this week.  Reading Logs are due Monday, September 19.  (100 minutes)

Math: Students practiced using calculators to solve “change-to” problems where a number is given and needs to be changed to a new number.  They were responsible for figuring out how to get to the new number using a variety of operations.  As a class, we learned the importance of knowing our basic facts during the game “Beat the Calculator”.  Money concepts were also reviewed at the end of the week.  Students wrote different amounts in dollar-cents notation.  Our unit 1 math test will be on Wednesday, September 21.  A review guide will be going home on Monday.

Social Studies:  Students learned how to use a physical map to determine various landforms across the country.  They discussed how different regions have particular landforms based on their location.

Writing:  We started our writing program: The Writer’s Express (WEX)!  Students enjoyed learning about the writer’s mindset, the rules for writing, and how to “show” readers with their words.   In grammar, students differentiated between commands and exclamations.  They used correct capitalization and ending punctuation to make sure the words formed a complete sentence.

Spelling:  We took our week 2 spelling test.

Miscellaneous:  We had another great week!  On Wednesday, we had the wonderful opportunity of attending the Music for Youth concert.  By watching peers play the violin and cello, students were able to see if this experience was something they would like to do in the future.  We also worked on our Flat Stanley letters!  We hope to send these out by the end of next week.  Just a reminder, book orders are due on September 29.  I hope you all have a fabulous weekend and please let me know if you have any questions!