After a full week of testing last week, we will get back to our normal routines this week. Here is a look at our week ahead:
* There will be no Weekly Folders this week due to report cards. Your child will bring home his/her report card on Friday. I figured that was enough information about your child for one week :o)
* Scholastic book club orders will go out this week. They will be due on Friday, March 14th. Although this is a short turn-around, I am hoping to get the books in before spring break.
* The kids have been reading their biographies for the monthly challenge. Just a reminder that biography book reports are due Thursday, March 20th. We will begin presenting in class that day.
* In reading we will begin doing more work with making inferences. An inference is when we use our background knowledge/own thoughts and add it to text clues in order to draw conclusions. We will begin by doing real life examples of how we infer each day and then we will look at how our inferring can help us decode new vocabulary words. We will also get back into a routine of our small reading groups!
* In writing the kids are working to plan out their final response to fiction essay. This essay will focus on one of the main character traits; include two moments from the book that show what the character does, feels, and says; and use those details to show the character trait. We will work to plan out our moments, revise to add more detail from the story, and create an interesting lead.
* In grammar we will cover pronouns. Pronouns are words that take the place of a noun. The kids will learn how to identify a pronoun in a sentence and also correctly use one in their independent writing.
* We begin Unit 7 in math. A parent note explaining this unit will come home with your child on Monday. Unit 7 has the kids work with fractions and probability. This week we will review the basic parts of a fraction, find the fraction of a whole number, experiment with equivalent fractions and also review how fractions are used in chance/probability situations. Mad minutes will also start up again this week!
* In social studies we have talked a bit about why explorers left their homeland to come to the "New World". The kids learned about different tools that were used to help explorations. We will take a short quiz over this material later in the week (most likely Thursday). A study guide with information will be sent home on Monday. The kids will then have a chance to focus on one main explorer from the past. We will spend time researching some interesting information about the explorer, the impact the explorer had, and their motivations for exploring. We will look at how this explorer's impact affected not only his home country, but also the Native Americans and North America as well.
* 2 more weeks until spring break and we are back to a normal schedule! Fingers crossed we get some warmer weather to help us through! Thanks for all of your support at home and have a great week!
~ Mrs. Galazka
