Labor Day Week

Hope you all had a relaxing extended weekend! We're ready for a busy 4 days ahead of us! Here's a look at what is to come:

We will begin our Treasures reading program this week. Our theme for the week is "mysteries". We are working with both fiction and nonfiction stories to understand plot, specifically looking at problems and solutions. We will not be starting formal guided reading groups yet, however, the students will continue working with their reader responses and will start sharing their responses in partners and small groups.

We took our spelling pretest on Friday since this is a 4 day week. Our spelling pattern this week deals with short vowels. We will only have one spelling list this week with 25 words. The students will practice their words in class and will also do word sorts. We will take a final test on Friday. The students have both their spelling pretest and their spelling lists in their Home Folders to study from throughout this week.

In grammar we are working with determining complete sentences vs. sentence fragments. The students are also reviewing the different types of sentences and ending punctuation.

In math we will continue to work with polygons. The students are adding to their geometry picture dictionaries daily! This week we will add vocabulary words such as polygon, convex, concave, radius, diameter, chord, and congruent. We will be experimenting with compasses and playing Polygon Pair-Up, as well as making "Who am I?" riddles. We will most likely be taking a test over Unit 1 early next week. The students will take a review in class and have a night or two to study the vocabulary and concepts before taking the test in class.

We learned about the crust, mantle, and core last week. We also made a 3-D diagram of the Earth and practiced the layers of the earth chant. This week we will focus more on volcanos. We will be working with how volcanos are made, the parts of a volcano, and what happens when they erupt. The students will take a quiz over the layers of the earth and volcano vocabulary later in the week. A study guide will be sent home ahead of time. Once we have the quiz under our belts, we will move on to learning about plate tectonics.

The kids are working with focusing on one moment in time during our writing lessons. They are doing a great job working in the "writer's mindset" and responding to each other's writing. This week we will work on adding details to make moments in time more vivid to the readers. The students will work on using strong words to convey feelings and other senses.

Spirit Wear orders and Scholastic book orders are due on Friday.

Have a great start to your week!