The First Week of Fall

We survived MAP testing and are looking forward to another wonderful week. Here's a look at what's to come:

Chinese will continue this week! Last week we worked to learn how to say our teacher's name, "hello", "how are you?", and "good, good, very good". The kids are so enthusiastic about learning a new language--it's fun to watch and learn along with them!

Our theme this week in reading is "Our National Parks". We will use nonfiction and a Time for Kids article to continue practicing main ideas and details. We will continue to write reading response letters to our "just right" books and begin meeting as small groups to practice our strategies and skills in more detail.

There will be 2 spelling lists again this week. Remember that if your child misses 2 or less on the pretest on Monday, then he/she will receive the Challenge list to work with. Our spelling pattern this week deals with words that have the long "e" sound. This can be made with spellings such as "ea", "ie", and "ee".

In grammar we will work with simple and compound sentences. The students will work to use conjunctions such as "and, "but", and "or" to combine two independent clauses.

We begin Unit 2 in math. A parent letter with information about our new chapter came home with your child last week. In this unit, there are 3 main areas of focus: to examine different uses and equivalent names of numbers and review base-ten place-value system; to review procedures for addition and subtraction of multidigit whole numbers; and to reintroduce and extend ideas about data collection, organization, display, and analysis. The kids will be receiving Study Link books that look similar to their math journals. These books will travel with the students each night and will contain their study link homework for the evening. THE STUDENTS SHOULD NOT WORK AHEAD IN THIS BOOK TO "SAVE TIME". They should just complete the study link that is assigned for that particular night.

Mad Minutes will also begin in math. The kids will take 1-minute tests 2-3 times each week to practice their multiplication and division facts. Everyone will be starting at x2. The kids will need to answer 20 problems in 1 minute in order to move to the next level. If your child does not complete the 20 problems or misses one problem out of the 20, then he/she will correct the mistake and finish the entire first page of Mad Minutes along with a short backside for homework to ensure extra practice. Keep your eyes open for the first Mad Minutes test that will come home this week!

We are coming close to finishing up Unit 1 in our WEX series. The students are doing a great job of focusing their writing on one specific event. This week we will talk about revising our writing pieces to add in more details so that the reader can have a clearer view of what your child is writing about. Unit 2 will focus on SHOWING the reader what happens during an event through rich description, rather than telling the reader.

To help us remember the 4 ways that the plates of the Earth move, the kids started creating their own songs! We have divided ourselves up into groups and each group is responsible for giving the definition of either subduction, divergent, convergent, or transforming plates. These songs will be recorded and shared with each other in class to help us remember the words. So far we have songs from Johnny Cash, Taylor Swift, Taio Cruz, and Bon Jovi -- quite a variety AND quite entertaining! We will be reviewing all we've learned about volcanoes and tectonic plates through Wednesday of next week and the children will take a test over this material Thursday or Friday. The kids will have a study guide, review sheets, and any worksheets we've done to study from. They are also welcome to take home a text book to review as well!

Volcano extension projects are due FRIDAY!!!! Remember that if your child is doing his/her project with food, you need to email me AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! This way we can talk and make sure that proper precautions are taken.

MVP of the Week this week is Cailin! We can't wait to learn more about her!

Due to MAP testing and our crazy schedule, the kids didn't have a chance to check out books on Friday. I will give them time on Monday to go down to the LMC to check out new books. We will have our regular checkout time on Friday morning this week!

Did you hear that the children's author Dan Gutman emailed our class back? Ask you child about some of the questions he answered for us!

I think that covers everything for the week. If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know. Have a great week!