Welcome back from spring break. I hope everyone had a great time over their days off and I can't wait to hear about all of the exciting things that the kids did. We are back to a regular schedule Monday-Thursday and then we will have another day off on Friday. The kids will also have the following Monday off while the teacher's are at their SIP Day!
* Sanskar is our MVP this week
* Don't forget that our Book Fair is this Thursday, April 5th from 3:00-8:00! We hope to see you there! The kids will have a preview of the books sometime on Tuesday before the fair officially opens. This will allow them to write down some items on their "wish list".
* The genre of the month is poetry. The kids will be required to read a few poetry books and record these on their book logs. They will then pick 2 of their favorite poems to analyze (sheet will be provided). Out of these 2 poems, they will be pick one they want to "perform". This will be done in place of their regular book talks using Photo Booth. By the end of the month they will turn in the book log, poem analysis sheets, and record. All of three of these things will be combined for their final book report grade.
* In reading we will continue to draw conclusions. This week we will use nonfiction text to practice pulling out important details vs. details that are interesting to us. We will analyze the author's opinion on a piece of writing and compare/contrast this to our own. If time permits, the kids will have an opportunity to use these skills in a debate format in the classroom.
* In grammar this week, we will focus on adjectives. The kids will work to identify and categorize them into proper and common adjectives. We will also go over the punctuation/capitalization rules for these as well.
* We return to our WEX writing program this week. The third book in our WEX program focuses on short fiction. Throughout this unit, the kids will continue to explore the impact of strong verbs, sensory/showing details, focused moments, setting, and use of dialogue. They will demonstrate this knowledge by using them in short stories. The students will have a chance to create their own realistic character, put the character in realistic situations, and plan out a personality. We will then continue to work in weeks to come to plan out a plot for their story.
* We will begin Unit 8 in math this week. Unit 8 deals with Area and Perimeter. The kids will review perimeter on Monday and work to find the perimeter of various shapes. We will use this knowledge to do scale drawings of our classroom. We will then review how to find the area of various shapes and then even find the area of our own skin (yikes!).
* In science, we will continue to work with circuit electricity. The kids will work to make effects with an electric current--learning how motors and electromagnets work. We will do an overall review of all that we have learned so far about electricity after this. If time allows, we will begin looking at conductors and insulators. All activities are hands-on and the kids are having tons of fun with it. We may have some future scientists and electricians in here!
* As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know! Hope you have a wonderful start to the new month!
