January is over???

Well it looks as if we're wrapping up ANOTHER month! Can it be? This year is flying by! I want to thank you all for the wonderful turn out at our Star Lab night last week. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as your children have over the past few weeks. They sure have learned a lot about our sky!

This week we will be wrapping up our mystery unit. Your children have been loving reading mysteries, trying to solve them before the detective in the story does. Some fun series for your children to read at home are The Calendar Club, Third Grade Detectives, Jigsaw Jones, Encyclopedia Brown, Nancy Drew, A-Z Mysteries and Cabin Creek Mysteries.

We continue to learn about how to write informational texts. We are all experts on so many interesting topics!

Math is now being taught twice a day...we are working on mastering our multiplication facts, understanding division as it relates to multiplication, and working on multi-step problem solving. We are also learning about telling time. This past week, we reviewed telling time to the quarter hour, half hour, and minute. This week we'll look at units of time and understand elapsed time.

Since math is twice a day, Brazil has been put on hold. Brazil will be taught sporadically over the upcoming weeks.

Soon we will begin investigating the Solar System and learn how to conduct short research on various aspects of our galaxy.

A few miscellaneous things...

1. It is imperative that you set aside daily math fact practice time at home. We only write practice math facts on Thursdays in our assignment books since the quizzes are on Fridays, but it should be done daily!

2. Spelling practice should be continuous throughout the week as well. Again, we only write study spelling on Wednesdays for the review on Thursdays, but our words are increasing in difficulty with multiple meanings.

3. Report cards will be uploaded to BC@ Home at the end of the week. Be sure to log on to view your child's report card. I look forward to meeting with you all over the next few weeks to discuss your child's progress.

Mystery Readers

 Camella and her mom.

 Haley and her mom.

Luke and his mom.

 

Week of January 13th

What a busy month January is proving to be and not just inside the classroom: Lip Sync, Star Lab, CAPER, One School/One Book (starting in a week or so...), the Science Fair (at the beginning of February), just to name a few!

We have been off and running since returning from break. I'd like to use this blog post for some important announcements and reminders.

Star Lab Parent Night is Wednesday, January 22nd from 6 - 7pm. Please send in the RSVP by Tuesday, January 14 whether you plan on attending or not. This will give Mrs. Mooney and I time to organize the event to make it run as smooth as possible based on the number attending.

Parent/Teacher Conferences: Last week I sent an email with a link for an online sign up for parent/teacher conferences. These conferences are optional, however, I believe it is important to touch base. With only 2 afternoons at my disposal I have set up 15 minute blocks of time to be able to accommodate everyone. I understand it is difficult to take time off from work to come in for only 15 minutes, so I am willing to conduct phone conferences at the time you sign up. Please visit the link below to sign up for a time and then shoot me a separate email requesting that I call you at that time, including the best number to reach you at. I look forward to meeting with all of you!

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0945A9A82DAAFE3-february

Math:
Math Facts
We have been working tremendously hard on memorizing our multiplication facts here in school as well as now moving on to understanding division concepts. It is extremely important that math fact practice is worked into your daily homework routine. We continue to have math fact quizzes every Friday. This week many have moved on to the 6's, however, I still have people working on the 9's, 3's, and 4's. On each fact quiz that is taken on Friday I make a note as to which facts your child should be working on.

Problem Solving
Your child now has 4 different operations to choose from when solving word problems: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. We have been discussing at length the difference between these operations and what these operations are actually asking us to do.
1. addition: putting together groups of different sizes
2. subtraction: taking away from the total number
3. multiplication: putting together equal groups
4. division: taking the total number of items and separating them into equal groups

Last week your child brought home word problems to solve. The format of those word problem sheets are meant for your child to think through what the question is asking them to do, show their work, put their answer in a sentence, and then explain their thinking.

For example:

Problem: Naomi has 45 red beads and 69 purple beads. She loses 16 beads while making a bracelet. How many beads does Naomi have left?

What do you know?

• Underline that in the problem.

What do you need to find out?

• Circle that in the problem.

Solve. Show your work (picture/model/diagram/equation).

45 + 69 = 114
114 - 16 = 98 beads

Answer Sentence: (Tell me in a sentence what your answer is)
Naomi has 98 beads left.

Look back and check. Explain why your answer makes sense. (Tell me why you knew which operation to use).
I needed to find how many beads Naomi had to start with since she had 45 red and 69 purple. Once I found that, I knew she lost 16 so I had to subtract that from the total number of beads she started with. 

This week your child will be continuing to focus on choosing an appropriate equation to figure out word problems.
 

Happy New Year!

Wow, what an amazing two week vacation! I hope you all were able to enjoy time with family and friends. I can't wait to hear from your children about all of the amazing things they were able to do during the time off from school.

This month brings new topics of study:

Reading Workshop: In reading, we'll begin looking closely at the genre of mysteries. This week we'll learn how to read closely to identify right away what the mystery is, how to step in the detective's shoes, how to read with suspicion, collect clues, and retrace our steps.

Writing Workshop: We'll learn how writers of information teach their readers about something. We'll start off the week thinking about topics we may be experts on and write about these possible topics until we decide on the topic we know the most. This week we'll focus on the different structures informational writers can use to organize their writing.

Math: This week we'll begin diving into division. We'll relate division to subtraction and then to multiplication. Keep practicing multiplication! We'll spend time every day in class reviewing our multiplication facts. Fact quizzes on Friday will continue.

Science: Our portable planetarium StarLab is here! For the next 3 Fridays we will be going into StarLab to learn about constellations, the reason for seasons, and how to identify which season it is based on the location of the Big and Little Dippers.

Social Studies: We'll continue to look at Brazil. This week we'll look at the needs and wants of various people in Brazil and we'll compare these to our needs and wants in the United States. We'll also learn about their flag and what it represents.