A sneek peak to our upcoming week...

I hope you all had a fantastic Thanksgiving with your families. I know I'm thankful for each of my students and their families. I couldn't do what I do each day with your children without your continued support.

How fast our time is flying by! We have completed our character study in guided reading groups and are now moving into one of my favorite units...Non-fiction! If you have any children's non-fiction magazines such as Ranger Rick or National Geographic Kids that you would like to share with the class, please send them in. We will be immersing ourselves in non-fiction for the next month and learning how the structure of non-fiction helps us as readers understand what we're reading. This week we'll look closely at how reading fiction and non-fiction differs and how titles and subtitles organize the information.

This week we'll learn about and name various homophones. We'll discover how these words sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. We'll use these homophones to write complete sentences utilizing appropriate mechanics.

In math, we're understanding multiplication as it relates to addition. We're discovering how we already know some of our facts! We'll begin looking at arrays and how we can draw arrays to help us when multiplying. We have begun using our array cards to help us fill in our multiplication chart. We're noticing patterns with our facts and how these patterns help us understand what multiplication really means.

We continue to have our weekly addition and subtraction fact quizzes. We have been taking these quizzes for nine weeks. Congratulations to those students who have passed all four quizzes! Please note that these quizzes will end in 3 weeks in which we'll then need to turn our attention to multiplication facts.

In social studies, we're learning about how ancient Egyptians lived and what they valued. We're understanding how different Egyptians contributed to their civilization based on what craft they chose, such as weaver, potter, scribe, farmer, sculptor, etc.

This week your child will be introduced to a new online resource that I am just becoming familiar with. It is called scootpad. Scootpad allows me to have the students practice various skills taught in both reading and math. I can see if there is a particular skill or topic they may need to revisit based on how they progress through questions asked on scootpad. As we all become more familiar with how this works, your child may work on this online resource at home.

I have enjoyed meeting with you for our parent/teacher conferences thus far and look forward to the upcoming meetings both this week and next!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours!

I look forward to meeting with all of you at our upcoming parent/teacher conferences!

November continues...

What a beautiful start to this week as I am working diligently on report cards!!! We will continue with book groups and focus on how characters change. Writing conferences will take place on our personal narratives. We'll learn how multiplication is repeated addition. We'll discover how the ancient Egyptians lived and we'll also spend time learning about myths and actual events that took place during the first Thanksgiving. I look forward to meeting with all of you in the upcoming weeks to discuss your child's progress!

November News

We have wrapped up many units! Pollination has come to a close, adding and subtracting greater numbers will be finished early this week, and personal narratives are reaching their completion.

This week we'll continue looking at character traits and then moving on to series books in which we'll discover how characters change from one book to another in a particular series. We will finish Because of Winn Dixie and I must say how impressed I am with all of their deeper thinking! We have had many fantastic discussions about why the title is what it is, how Opal has changed throughout the book and what has caused this change.

In math we will take an assessment on adding and subtracting greater numbers and then will begin multiplication by the end of this week! Please continue to review addition and subtraction facts. We are entering our sixth week and with more facts on the horizon, I'd like to have these quizzes end soon!

We will begin turning our focus to social studies and taking a short break from science. We'll begin looking at ancient Egypt, while also looking at some modern cultures, specifically Argentina.

The time has come to begin cursive handwriting! I know many students are extremely excited about this. I have asked the students to not write anything in cursive until we have finished learning all of the lowercase letters and then the uppercase letters. This may take us a few months! Feel free to begin responding to their Friday letters in cursive so they become familiar with reading cursive. I hope you have seen a tremendous change in your child's Friday Letters. They are showing such growth and understanding of what is included in a paragraph. We'll continue to practice paragraph writing and begin to focus on mechanics! We need to be consistently using capitals and periods and understanding when we have written a run-on. This will be our focus this month.