This Week...

September 24-28, 2018

Reading: We are finishing up our launch unit very soon. We have been practicing taking notes with our predictions, questions, words we don't know and summaries as we read independently each day. We drew pictures to practice visualizing what we were reading in the story, The Girl Who Hated Books.

Math:  We began working on Chapter 3 this week. This chapter covers addition, up to 10,000, with problems that don't need to be grouped and those that do need regrouping.

Social Studies:  We took our test on our Maps unit on Thursday. We then worked on creating questions to go along with our maps that we created.

Writing:  We began working on grammar this week. We have been focusing on what a complete sentence looks like as well as the difference between a statement and a question. Ask your students if they can tell you the difference!

Word Study: We have been working on consonant clusters in both the beginning and ending of words. We will continue with this next week.

Miscellaneous:   Mrs. Morizzo will be returning on Thursday, Oct. 4th (next week). We are looking forward to welcoming her to class! Please check your child's take home folder for the sheet that I sent home with your conference time.  No School-Friday, Oct. 5th-Teacher Institute Monday, Oct. 8th- Columbus Day Thank you! Have a great weekend!

This Week...

September 17-21, 2018

Reading: We have been learning methods for taking notes during our independent reading as well as practicing have discussions with groups on the same text. We practiced these methods with non-fiction articles on animals as well as poems that the students used to make connections to their own lives.

Math:  Chapter 2 continued this week. We practiced ways to use mental math to find reasonable answers to addition and subtraction problems in the hundreds.  Practicing rounding to tens and hundreds at home would be helpful for this chapter. If you have not signed and returned your child's Chapter 1 math test, please do so by Monday.

Social Studies:  We have explored many different types of maps from city maps to maps of transit systems and discussed the need for being able to read any kind of map. The map that they are creating on their own is due Thursday, September 27th.They will be creating questions about their maps to share with other classmates, so it is important to have it done on time.

Writing:  We are continuing to focus our writing on one particular moment, in order to add rich detail and make our writing more developed. We also wrote rough drafts, during our library time, on stories about trees that we have had connections with in our lives. This is an extension of our reading of the book Wishtree. We will be finished reading this book this coming week in class.

Word Study:  We have begun our word study work this week. The first two lessons were dealing with beginning and ending consonant clusters of words and how to find other words that used the same clusters.

Miscellaneous:    If you have not already done so, please sign up for a time and date preference for conferences. Here is a link to the site: Parent Teacher Conference Time Preference

This Week

September 10-14, 2018

Reading: We have been continuing to move along with our launch unit this week. We have been working on how to discuss books with each other, using the "fishbowl" method after reading The Bee Tree.

Math:  Chapter 2 began this week. We are working on using mental math, by rounding, to add and subtract more difficult problems. Practicing rounding to tens and hundreds at home would be helpful for this chapter. If you have not signed and returned your child's Chapter 1 math test, please do so by Monday.

Social Studies:  We have begun to create our own countries and make maps using key points. These creative maps will be due on Thursday, Sept. 27th. The students are very excited and using their creativity. They brought home paper on Thursday to create their finished product.

Writing:  We are beginning to write each day using the WEX program. Lessons each day teach a different writing skill and not only give the students a chance to write, but also to share and discuss with their classmates. Our lessons this week were on focusing on one particular moment in our day. We also wrote about what it would be like to be one inch tall.

Word Study:  We have finished our Word Study pretests to generate individual spelling lists and will begin Word Study next week.

Miscellaneous:  Scholastic Book orders were just placed. I'm sorry for the delay, but I wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to get online to place their orders.  Picture day is coming up on Thursday, Sept. 20th. Please either order your pictures online or send in your order form by then. If you haven't sent in your order form and $6.50 for your student's recorder for Music, please do so as soon as possible. Please sign up for a time and date preference for conferences. Here is a link to the site: Parent Teacher Conference Time Preference Have a great weekend!