News & Notes:
- Newbery Project - Just a reminder that we have reading time each day in Room 107. All Newbery books and chapter notes can be completed in class.
- Multiplication Goal - Students were given a blank multiplication chart to fill in. It was not timed. They then were asked to set a goal for themselves. Their chart should be coming home. We'll try it again at the end of the month and compare the information. Being fluent with basic multiplication facts is tied to success in math in 5th grade and beyond.
- PTA Read a Thon - We're off to a good start on our Read a Thon. Students and classes earn prizes for participation. Please help your child log into their account if they have not done so yet. New log in information sheets are going home 3/11 for everyone who hasn't logged in yet. One of the best predictors of reading success is the number of minutes a child reads each day. Our goal is 30 minutes - but even 20 minutes a day makes a big impact!
Upcoming Dates:
- Fri, March 11 - End of the second trimester
- Fri, March 18 - No school for students
- Fri, March 18 - Second trimester report cards available on MiStar
- March 26 - April 3 - Spring Break. Classes resume April 4.
What We're Learning:
- Writing - Using our "Performance Assessment" books from Journeys, we will be writing a narrative essay.
- Reading - Students are working on their chapter notes with their Newbery project books. As a whole class we've been continuing to work on summarizing.
- Brain Friendly Reading - We continue to work on using strategies to identify syllables and spell unfamiliar words. Next week will focus on ea and oo vowel teams. We have been incorporating the online game Wordle into our word study time. It's a great way to play with phonics!
- Social Studies - We continue to study the constitution and how our government is organized. Next week we will study voting rights.
- Science - Our long term investigations in science continued this week with a trip to our courtyard to see what evidence of change we could find and check in on our mini-greenhouses. Fridays will be our engineering/design days as we continue to investigate how energy is transferred and the ways humans use natural energy to do work (our water wheels are a great example of this).
- Math - We continue to practice using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division to solve math problems. Practicing basic multiplication and division facts at home will help build fluency and speed.
Weekly Highlights:
- After more than 100 years at the bottom of the Weddell Sea, Shackleton's ship the Endurance has been found. We just finished reading about this epic story two weeks ago. It was super exciting to see the ship from the drone footage released on Wednesday. Ask your child to show you their Google Classroom writing assignment from Shackleton
Ask Me:
We've been studying genres and did a genre sort of book covers. Ask your child to describe the different types of genres. Which one is their favorite and why? Ask your child to sort books in your home by their genre type.
