Math/Science Week Dec 17-21st

Parents,

Well here we are, down to the last 4 1/2 days!  I know it is going to just fly by, but before we leave for Winter Break we must get a few more things in.

Being that it will be such a crazy week, we will not be diving into any new content this week.  Now that the kids fully understand the relationship between multiplication and division through our study of fact families last week, we will start to dive into a mixture of both multiplication and division word problems.  The students will have to thoroughly read word problems, decode them, decide whether it is multiplication or division, and use the strategies taught in class to solve for them.  I have tried to help the kids decode these problems by telling them this:
**If you are given a total and ask to break that total apart, you know it is division.
**If you are asked to find the total, then you know its multiplication.  

In Science this week, we will close our study of slow and fast land changes and forces that shape the land on Thursday.  We have now studied hurricanes, tornadoes, landslides, earthquakes, and volcanoes in great depth. Our weathering and erosion unit test will be this Tuesday, December 18th.  The study guide and flashcards SHOULD have come home last Tuesday the 11th in your child's red HW folder!  I will send the PDF file for these things as well just in case it evaporated!  After the test, the students will be put into groups on Wednesday and Thursday to create posters on the natural disasters that we studied.  It's a great fun way to close out the unit and the week ;-)

On Friday will be the Sing-a-Long in the morning at 9:30.  Parents are welcome to come and stand on the sides to observe.  From there, we will be heading outside to recess so that our parent volunteers can set up in the room for the Holiday Party. Our Holiday Party will begin at 11:15.  Kids will first be eating their lunch in the room as well as a holiday cookie and watching a holiday movie.   They will then have a craft to design and we will be releasing the kids at noon.

I hope every single one of you have a wonderful break and holiday with your beautiful children.  I'm blessed again this year with such a nice homeroom class and wonderful, supportive parents.  Thank you for all your help and support thus far this year  :-)

Love Always,
Mrs. S

Math/Science Week of December 10th-14th

Parents,


For the last two weeks we have been learning about division.  It has been going really well.  The kids are super excited to be learning division and are motivated to understand it.  I think it makes them feels like big kids :)  We have taught them two strategies to solve division problems, the Octopus Method and the Cookies Method.

This week we will tackle Multiplication and Division Fact Families to see the relationship between the two.  For instance, if 4 X 6 = 24, then 6 x 4 = 24, then 24 / 4 = 6, and 24 / 6 = 4.  The key to writing these correctly is to remind the kids that when they are writing the multiplication equations, the smaller numbers go first.  When they are writing the division equation, the larger number is always written first.  Fact families is usually a concept that students catch on to rather quickly.

This will be our last fast facts of the nine weeks this week.  It will not be recorded into the grade book.  Start getting ready for multiplication fast facts next semester!!  We start with 0's, 1's, and 2's in January.

In Science we have been diving into our unit on Weathering and Erosion.  The kids learned the week before last that there are slow land changes to our Earth due to weathering and agents of weathering such as wind, running water, people, animals, sand, etc... Last week we studied a few Natural Disasters like hurricanes, tornadoes, and land slides that cause fast changes to the Earth's surface.   This week we will continue studying other Natural Disasters such as earthquakes and volcanoes!  The kids are getting to see some excellent footage of these changes happening to the earth and are really quite interested in this unit.

This week we will be collecting 100% juice boxes or cans for the local food bank.  Also, Toys for Tots will be collected on Wednesday from 8:30-10:00.

We have almost reached the finish line of half the year.  Can you believe it?

Love,
Mrs. S