We have been awfully busy in class finishing up our character traits unit and book groups, working on wrapping up our narrative writing unit, and beginning multiplication. It is amazing what we have been able to accomplish without having a full 5 day week in over a month!
This week we will be begin a new unit in
Reading Workshop. We will begin looking at non-fiction and understanding how non-fiction text features help us as readers. We'll examine titles, subtitles, pictures, captions, and bolded words. We'll work in small groups to see how these features can help us with our thinking about what the article is about and how we must use these features to navigate through a non-fiction text. We will also begin identifying main ideas of paragraphs. We'll be reading articles on bats, chimpanzees, and koalas!
In
Writing Workshop, we'll begin revising and editing our small moments to eventually publish them. We have done a really nice job using a storyteller voice to put our reader right there with us in our small moment.
Multiplication will continue in
math this week. We will look at a factor of 10, continue to focus on our factor of 5, understand how to multiply with factors of 10, and look at multiple step word problems. Our first "Fact Friday" went very well, with all of us mastering our factor of 2. This Friday we will all move on to a factor of 5. Be sure to continue to practice these facts daily at home!
Your child will be taking a district mandated assessment this week covering place value, comparing and ordering numbers, rounding, and adding and subtracting greater numbers. We have been continually practicing these concepts daily in class and will take this assessment on Wednesday.
We will take a brief break from word work from now until the Thanksgiving break. During this time, we will learn the
basic parts to a paragraph. We will come to understand a topic sentence, body, and closing sentence. Over the next few weeks you should hopefully see your child writing in paragraphs in their Friday Letters. There will be a Friday Letter this Friday, November 22, but not one again until Friday, December 6. This has been a great way for each child to reflect over their learning during the week and use various resources in the class to assist them in writing this letter to you.
In
spelling, we have been understanding our spelling words and which part of speech these words are. We have also been defining them to assist us with our sentences. I would like to see the sentences written on their weekly reviews to reflect what the words mean. Please try to have your child practice sentences with varying subjects. Try to have them begin only one sentence with "I". There will be a spelling review this Thursday, but Unit 8 will not take place until after the Thanksgiving break.
In
social studies, we have been working on learning about the economy of the United States. We have focused on the various regions of the U.S., the products of these regions, products that we export and import, and understanding the difference between needs and wants. This week we'll focus on abundance, scarcity, natural resources, and interdependence, and learn about where our food comes from by researching different farms such as dairy, wheat, beef, poultry, and fish farms.
Last week each child was assigned a buddy from Mrs. Baldwin's first grade. We showed our buddies the fun, interactive website
www.abcya.com/.This past week, our buddies spent time with us on Raz-Kids. They listened to us read a third grade text, while they read us a text from their account. Please feel free to put your child on Raz-Kids at home. We will go on this site once a week to help enhance our reading comprehension.
This week we will learn various aspects of Microsoft Word and use our USB drives for the first time!
We have been enjoying our weekly mystery readers! I may have to change up some of the clues...if your child has been asking you random questions, such as what was your first job, or your shoe size, it's because they're trying to be able to figure out if you're the reader!
Milo's Mom
Mia's Dad and sister Eve
Owen's Dad
