Week 4

9/30/2021

News & Notes

Progress Report - September progress reports went home today. Please sign and return them on Monday.
3-2-1 - You will see a 3 point scale on a lot of your children's work. As a general rule, 3 means your child is "nailing it" and has a good mastery of the concept, 2 mean they are "on their way" and progressing toward mastery. 1 means they are "not yet there" and need additional practice to gain understanding.
Resubmit/retakes - Learning is a continual process that takes place at different speeds for different children. Your child is always welcome to resubmit an assignment or retake a test (such as their spelling tests) after they have practiced and/or added to the work. If they are willing to continue to work at it, I'm certainly willing to grade it again!
Very Merry Un-Birthday - As a way to ensure that we give equal time to all birthdays, we will have one whole class "Un-Birthday" celebration this Wednesday. It will be our one birthday celebration for the year. Kids are invited to wear hats and bring a non-food treat for their class if they'd like. We'll talk about birthday celebrations throughout the year and play some games outside.

Writing - This week we will be writing letters using "friendly letter format".
Reading - Our reading focus this week will be "tuning into interesting words" as we work towards increasing vocabulary and word choice in writing.
Social Studies - We are studying geography.
Science - We're going to explore the question, "How do animals use their internal and external structures to promote growth and survival?" Check out this video of a grizzly bear catching salmon. This will be the phenomena we're trying to explain.
Math - We will start the week reviewing addition and subtraction to the ten thousands and then pivot to factors and multiples. We'll be working on factors and multiples for a few weeks.
Social Emotional Learning - Starting Monday we'll begin each day writing in a "gratitude journal".
Word Study Words - All students have received word study words. These words follow patterns in the English language and will be your child's spelling words. We have six different groups in our class, which means that the first day your child gets words will vary from week to week. In our planners, your child should be writing what word study "day" they are on. For example, Day 1 they get new words. Day 5 they test. Students get two sets of the words - one for school and one for home if they need extra practice. Here's the pattern of what we do at school:

We went back to the courtyard to look for evidence of change. Ask your child what changes they have noticed in our courtyard habitat.
Also, our flower dissection was a big hit. Ask them to describe what they learned about the structures of a flower.