Welcome back! I can't wait to work with you and your child this school year. Here's to a great year. :) I look forward to meeting you all at Meet the Teacher/Sneak Peek on August 5th 8:30-10:30am. If you would like to bring your child's school supplies at that time I would appreciate it.
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Math- This week we will continue learning about geometric shapes (plane & solid figures) as well as fractions. We will look deeper into fractions by looking at fraction word problems later in the week. Look for our small group work on Tuesday and Wednesday to come home.for a more precise explanation of what we are doing. Students are expected to divide shapes into 1/2, 1/4 and understand it in picture form, number form and word form (seeing a picture of a shape equally divided in halves, seeing the number form 1/2, and the word form -half/halves. ) We will also do a review of bar graphs. This Wednesday our study guide will come home and the assessment will be on Tuesday the 17th. We will NOT have any more fact fluency checks for the year. :) So, if you don't see one in your child's folder today, it is because we are ending those. They have done a great job and are really rolling with their addition and subtraction facts.
RELA- In reading we are focusing on poetry this week. The children will be listening to, reading, and creating different types of poetry. Understanding that not all poems have to rhyme is a big concept at this age, so it should be very interesting to see how our poems turn out. In grammar, we are extending by looking at words that sound the same, but have different spellings and meanings (see, sea) . We will continue to look at standards we still have difficulty with, such as commas in lists and dates, capital letters at the beginning of sentences and punctuation at the end of sentences. Children are good at doing this in isolation (such as the sentence assessments), but they are not doing it in their writing and day to day work. They will be held accountable for this as the year closes. In writing, we have begun our new genre which is a fictional series. Children are making up pretend characters that go through different adventures. We will be working toward creating a 'book series' for each child. I'm already very impressed with the ideas and writing that has been occurring in class. :) Science/Social Studies- We will finish out the year with tall tales such as Paul Bunyan, Johnny Appleseed, and Pecos Bill. We will also be having a science lab next week in which we make ice cream!!! Field Day- Next week is field day! (19th) We will represent the country India (so if your child comes home saying that we are India, it will make more sense.) They will need to wear their light blue grade level Tshirt, and tennis shoes this day. (They will probably sign each others shirts at one of the stations, so if you are against that, please let me know in advance.) Remember to wear sunscreen put on at home, have a disposable bottle of water, and a disposable snack. End of Year Party- Our end of year party will be Thursday the 26th of May from 10-11am. There will be an ice cream station there as well. (YUMMY) If your child has food allergies, I will be very closely monitoring them at the ice cream station. You as parents are more than welcome to come to the end of year party. It is always great fun!!!! Hope everyone had a fabulous Mother's Day weekend!!! Welcome back!!!! We had a great week last week getting back into the swing of things and we are ready to go this week. The upper grades continue to have Milestone testing this week and next, so we continue to appreciate you waiting to come to the school until after 12pm. In regards to this, I have been helping to administer the tests for 4th grade, so some days your child may have said I was out in the am, but back for the rest of the day. They are correct. :)
Math- Today your child will bring home the study guide for Unit 5. THis will be posted on the website for you to work on if you would like to print an additional copy for yourself. It will also include the answer key so you can see the type of answers we have been working on and expect for the assessment. The assessment will be on Thursday of this week. We are continuing to work on word problems, as well as place value, greater than less than, 10 more 10 less, 1 more 1 less, circling groups of ten, and understanding that dimes are worth 10 pennies (correlating it to the base ten system). Reading/ELA- This week we will finish writing reviews. Our book reviews are really coming along, and we can't wait to share our best this Thursday with the class. If you saw the SLICE article, you can see they are working hard. In regards to grammar, we are working on adjectives, specifically adjectives that end in -er and -est. In reading we are comparing events & characters in informational stories. Social Studies- Teddy Roosevelt!!!! So far we LOVE Teddy, and who doesn't?! We have learned that he loved animals and nature as a child, started the Boone and Crockett club, and started the Bronx Zoo. We will also learn what conservation means and how he was instrumental in starting our National park system. Math- In math (when we return from break) we will be working on word problems as they relate to place value and money (dimes and pennies only.) We will begin learning about double digit addition (without regrouping) as well as review greater than, less than, and equal to. ***We will also begin doing our fact fluency with subtraction. :) (Again, the fact fluency is graded off of how well your child does on the amount they try. These are to help students become fluent/fast at adding and subtracting so they will not have to labor over basic addition and subtraction as they grow in their schooling career.
Reading- In reading next week we will continue working on comparing and contrasting adventures and events characters experience. With regards to grammar our focus will still be compound sentences (two simple sentences put together with a conjunction) and we will also be classifying objects (example-With Math- In math this week we will continue working on place value, comparing numbers with the <,>,= symbols and counting money with a focus on dimes and pennies. It is very important that children understand why certain numbers are bigger than others by explaining using the base ten system. Example- 41 is less than 73 because there are 4 tens in 41 and 4 tens are less than 7 tens.
Reading- In reading we have been working on understanding an author's reasons to support text, and we have looked at who is talking at particular points in a story. Hey Little Ant is a great book in which to do that.. This upcoming week, we will look at comparing adventures and events that characters have in stories. We will look at the different Magic TreeHouse books that we have read throughout the year, as well as other books in a series. In the grammar department, we are looking at conjunctions and compound sentences. The conjunctions For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, and So are our FANBOYS that help us remember these conjunctions. Next week we will work more on forming our compound sentences to help get our writing more sophisticated. In writing, we are writing opinion pieces, specifically reviews. The children have learned that some people get paid in real life to write reviews about restaurants, games, movies, and places. (This really sparked their interest!) We have been focusing on writing interesting introductions, catchy conclusions, adding small moments to make our review more meaningful, and giving reasons for our opinion within our review. We have also used a writing checklist to check over our own writing and our writing partner's writing similar to that of a doctor doing a checkup. ;) Science- We are wrapping up our unit on plants. Ask your child how their lima bean is doing. We have been growing lima beans in ziplock bags in our window. The children have learned the different parts of a plant (flower, leaves, stem, roots) and the functions of each part. We have also learned that plants need air, sun, soil, and water. Today was our Special Day for our character counts reward. All the children had a great time at their chosen activity. Activities they could have chosen from include: bubbles/chalk, board games, art, tug of war, relay races, parachute, and dance party. It was so much fun!!! Next week, we will have our Science lab on Tuesday at 1:15-2:00. If you are volunteering and plan to check your child out afterward, please write a note in the morning, and wait in the lobby or outside the front doors for your child will be dismissed as a walker that day. (ONLY if you write a note stating that. Your child CANNOT leave with you from the science lab.) Thank you for understanding and for volunteering!!! Additionally, Tuesday we will have PE, instead of music, so Kindergarten can prepare for their musical. We will still have PE on Wednesday and Friday as well. Math- We will be reviewing for our assessment. We will then take our assessment on non-standard units of measurement, then begin exploring telling time to the hour. Last week, we began doing fact fluency checks with addition. Each week, your child will do a 'pretest' and a 'posttest' to see how they have progressed. We will be charting these in class. Your child will be graded on the answers they provided within a 3 minute period (not on the entire sheet unless they completed the entire sheet in 3 minutes.) It is important to know that they will have a backside to the pretest in which they can practice at home. This is for you and does not need to return to school. The 'posttest' will not be two sided.
Reading- This week we will finish up our informational writing genre, and move onto opinion/persuasive. Tomorrow (Monday) there will be a homework assignment to bring in a small collection of items. Please understand that these will be used to help your child formulate ideas throughout a portion of our unit and may remain at school for some time. Therefore, if it is anything of great value, or importance, please reconsider sending it to school. This week we will focus on visualization while reading. This is similar to making a movie of what's happening in your mind while reading. This helps children think about what is happening even if the illustrations are not on the page. You can practice this at home, by simply reading aloud and having your child close their eyes and tell you after a page what they imagined, or draw a picture. When they are able to visualize, it helps them dig deeper and have a better grasp of the text. Your child will also begin to learn about inflected endings this week. We will focus on the endings of -ed and -ing. We will investigate the two sounds that -ed makes at the end of words as well. Science- The water cycle is the topic for this week. :) We are continuing to learn about how water travels from the earth, to the clouds, and back to the earth again in a form of precipitation. This past week, we made water cycle baggies and hung them in our window. Everyday the children eagerly approach the bags hoping to see some condensation fall down the side. They are also very intrigued by our water gauge that sits outside our classroom window. I bet after today's rain, we will have something to measure tomorrow. :) Math- This week in math we are continuing to work on measurement with non-standard units. (Ask your child what that means. :) ) We are also comparing measurements using non-standard units such as blocks, tiles, paperclips, erasers, hands, etc. Tomorrow we will be using marshmallows to compare our measurements. YUMMY! Today a study guide will be going home with your child. We will be breaking down this unit, as we did our last unit, into two different parts. As always, the study guide is a reference to help you work with your child. It doesn't need to be returned to class. There will be a strip stapled to it in order to help you with the measuring.
Reading- To recap, we've been learning about contractions, possessives, and compound words! Wow! Your kiddos are really learning a lot. I LOVE when they read something in their books and come tell me that they noticed one of those types of words. In regards to reading specifically, we are focusing on different types of text connections (text to text, text to self, and text to world. These just help us relate the book to ourselves and the world around us. With writing, we are finishing up our informational chapter books that we got to show you at Student Led Conferences. They have worked very hard on these and it is really showing. Science- We have finished up our weather unit, and are beginning our water cycle unit. Some important vocabulary words your child will be learning are: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, collection. (This will begin on Wednesday because of our science lab and musical rehearsals.) Thank you SO much to all of our parent volunteers who helped at our winter weather lab! The kids had a blast!!! Thank you all SO much for attending your child's student led conference. I was very impressed with how your children handled themselves during the conference as this was new to all of them. Upcoming Events- Tuesday 23rd- Family Focus Night Wednesday 24th Musical (for the school audience) 9am -wear jeans & periwinkle grade level shirt (leave shirt at school) Thursday 25th Musical 6pm (for families) Friday 26th Field Trip to the symphony (9-12) Math- This week in math we will wrap up unit 3 with our post assessment on Wednesday. The study guide came home last week and a clean copy can be found here on the website in case you would like to practice another. The answers can also be found in case you would like to see what answers we as teachers are looking for. The children have been doing a great job with word problems, and determining whether equations are equal or not.
R.E.L.A.- In writing we are continuing to work on informational writing. The children wrote a class book on our school, and have just begun writing a table of contents for their very own teaching chapter book. (Yes, I know they are only 6 years old, but they are doing amazing things!! You will be so impressed at student led conferences.) This week, we will start writing our chapters to our book. As far as grammar is concerned, we have worked on contractions and understanding an apostrophe takes the place of letters that are left out. This week, we will use apostrophes to show possession. This will be part of our homework on Thursday. (Thank you for encouraging your child to use capitals and punctuation appropriately.) With reading, we are focusing on main topic and key details, as well as text features. (I'm sure many of you heard about boldfaced words last week.) We will be doing a reading comprehension check with a DRA level 10 book this week. At this point in the school year, it is the expectation that children are reading at a level 10. Your child will be able to discuss their current reading level with you at our SLC-student led conference.) Science- This week we are continuing our unit on animals. The children have learned the 6 categories for animals (fish, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates, shelter vs. habitats, and that animals, just like people, need certain things to survive. Last week, we each chose an animal to do research on. We started our research, but need a bit more time to complete our animal research project. This week, we will wrap up our research and share our findings with the class via a poster, brochure, or teaching book. Ask your child about his/her animal and feel free to look up information at home to dig deeper. :) This week we will have our 100th day of school on Thursday!!! I can't believe it's already been 100 days. Math- This week in math we will be working on word problems, place value, and comparing numbers. It is important that the children are able to explain their thinking using math vocabulary. Such as 47 is made of 4 tens and 7 ones. It is bigger than 32 because 32 has 3 tens and 2 ones. 4 tens is more than 3 tens. Additionally, I wanted to let you know, as a grade level we have decided to administer the end of Unit 2 math assessment on Tuesday, November 3rd. The study guide will be coming home a week prior to the assessment, and will be completed at home.
Reading/Language Arts- In reading we are focusing on main topic of a passage and schema. Schema is building on what we already know to help us build new connections . In grammar we will begin focusing on verbs. With writing, we are working on using authors' crafts within our own personal narratives, and learning how to revise our writing. Next week (Oct 26th), we will continue to focus on main topic with our reading, and with verbs we will begin looking at past and future tense. In writing, we will write a final published piece of narrative writing. Science/Social Studies- Next week, we will begin working on magnets! We will discuss what we already know about magnets, determine what magnets are attracted to, and do a little experiment with magnets in class. **This Friday the children completed our COMPLIMENT chart meaning they earned 10 compliments from faculty/staff at SAE. Because they completed the chart, they were given a choice of what they wanted as a reward, and they choose Dum Dum lollipops! :) Way to go class! I'm so proud of them!!! **Long term sub- I'm so happy to announce that the long term sub for our class will be Laura Altman. She has been a long term sub at our school in Kindergarten, First, and Second grade all within the last year. Additionally she was a 5th grade teacher for five years, so she is highly qualified. Not only that, but Laura also has two children who attend SAE as well. I am so thrilled that she will be with your children in my absence, as I completely adore and trust her. I have included her email on this blog in case you need to get in touch with her. [email protected] **Upcoming Events -This week -ITBS- no visitors are allowed in the building until after 12. This test is for 3 & 5th graders. -Friday, Oct 30th Fall Festival rotations We will be asking for donations within the next week, so please keep an eye out. -Computer Lab volunteers-Mrs. Watson would love to have one assistant help in the computer lab on our assigned days. Our next lab day is Oct 27th @ 9-9:45am. If you are interested in helping, please let Anna Gross (our awesome room mom) know. -Nov 3- Math test Unit 2 -Nov 5- Picture retake day -Nov 9- Family Focus Night Conference Sign Up Link https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cQXOo4bLoTWpW7zMWbJm70kXkshrcPtVmoOWj95IkIs/edit?usp=sharing
Math- This week in math we are focusing on money. :) If you have any coins at home in which your children can practice sorting, and counting please allow them to do so. This will really help in the classroom. This also reiterates counting by 5, and 10. I have noticed in the classroom this week, that when children are using the manipulatives and real coins they are great at sorting them, but when they see them in black and white it is a whole new ballgame for some. Reading/ELA- We are focusing on breaking down words into little words this week and how to figure these words out in our reading. We are also learning about nouns as people, places, things, and animals. (Next week we will begin proper nouns and plural nouns, but we are starting off with basic nouns. We are continuing to write small moments in writers workshop. This week we are focusing on how writers write bit by bit, use strategies to help spell unknown words, and they also are mindful of their punctuation and capitalization. It is becoming more important that children are only using capitals for the beginning of sentences and for proper nouns. If they are placing capitals in the middle of words or sentences this will be counted incorrect. Social Studies- This week we have begun learning about Benjamin Franklin. He was one very important fellow. Did you know that he was one of the founders of: libraries, hospitals, police & fire stations, the post master general for the 13 colonies and he still found time to create all his wonderful inventions? WOW! The children will also be learning about his character traits (respect, fairness), as well as places he lived, and the ways in which things were very different back then, than from today. **Ways to help** Could we please have two volunteers? Our class needs 2 packets of regular Oreo brand oreo cookies. These must be original (no double stuff, or thin, or 'off' brand.) Our class is participating in an international math project online and will need some oreos. Our class will also be working with a 5th grade class to achieve our math goals for this project. If you can send any in, we need them Monday, Oct. 5th. Please reply to me and let me know. I will confirm with you, or let you know if we already have it covered. Thanks in advance. :) Upcoming Events: Thursday, Oct 8th -NO SCHOOL (professional development) Friday, Oct 9th -Conferences (Please sign up on the Google Doc if you have not done so yet. Also, if it is not allowing you to edit for some reason, please email me your preferred time and I will do my best to enter that time for you. :) Saturday, Oct 10th Youth Day Parade Monday, Oct 12th -Columbus Day NO SCHOOL Friday, Oct 30th Fall Festival (We may be asking for donations for this day, but as of now, no parent volunteers are needed. I will let you know if things change. ) |
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