Week 34: May 1st -May 5th

Reminders/Announcements:

• Monday, May 8th:  Math STAAR for 3rd (and 4th graders
• Tuesday, May 9th:  Reading STAAR for 3rd (and 4th graders)

Your child will be taking their first STAAR test next Monday and Tuesday, May 8th and 9th.  Here a few reminders and helpful hints to support your child at home:
- We will have an altered schedule on testing days due to beginning the test at 8:00am.  We will take our lunch after the completion of the test at 12:40pm and have specials and recess after.      
- Reassure your child that they have learned all the skills they need for the test.  Encourage and praise them for their success this school year.  Continue to build their confidence this week leading to Monday and Tuesday.  
- Please make sure your child gets plenty of sleep! 
- Eat a healthy breakfast.

• May 19 - Bike to School Day-  Important -If your child is going to participate in this event after school he or she will need a change of transportation note. 
• Monday, May 22nd:  Publishers Picnic
• Thursday, May 25th:  3rd grade Chariot Races
• Friday, May 26th:  Winds of Time school-wide parade 

Reading:
We will start our week reviewing vocabulary skills and context clues strategies.  We will practice how to identify the meaning of unknown words using context clues.  Your reader  will identify synonyms and antonyms of common words in their vocabulary using context clues as well.  

Later in the week, we will work on test taking confidence!  We will complete one final STAAR selection to review test taking strategies as well as celebrate all of the wonderful preparation they've done to be ready for next Tuesday (Reading STAAR test).  We will also learn and practice brain breaks that they can use during testing that do not distract their peers.

Writing:
We are going to revisit some of our favorite entries in our Writer's Notebook this week!  Your writer will reread their past work in their notebooks in order to revise and edit.  We will  specifically work on revising and editing for capitalization.  We will see where we can add capitalization for emphasis (e.g. WOAH!! or I TOLD her I wasn't feeling well.), proper nouns (e.g. Hunters Creek Elementary), and titles and headings (e.g. book titles, SFML titles).  We have added some capitalization online practice to our Language Arts websites.  We want to make sure we send our writers to fourth grade consistently capitalizing! 

Spelling:  We will be looking for how your child applies their spelling patterns this week.  We will take an application grade May 1st- May 4th. 

Social Studies:  Your child will finish their Texas festival project this week.  We can't wait to celebrate our final products this Friday.   

Math: We are entering our second and final week of STAAR Camp. Each class will be reviewing different concepts, as we do our last prep before the test. One concept that each class will cover is perimeter and area. It is important for your child to be able calculate both. They will also need to use the background knowledge of quadrilaterals when finding perimeter. Especially the rule about rectangles and squares when finding perimeter of a figure. 

Fractions will be another topic we will review this week, more specifically equivalent fraction using a pictorial model. The last two days of this week, we will have a circuit that will have different problem covering a variety of topics. This circuit will help prepare your child to how transition to different math concepts between questions. 

Homework this week will have review STAAR-like questions that will give you a chance to discuss past concepts at home. As always keep practicing those math facts. 

Science: This week in Science we are diverting our attention to the math concept of Personal Financial Literacy. We will discuss topics that include human capital, scarcity, credit and interest, and saving. Students will review some of what they learned in their Social Studies unit on Economics. Word problems will show them the connection between economics and math. A series of Kahoots will test their knowledge of various money issues. (And they love Kahoots!)