Week 30: April 3- 7

Week of April 3rd-7th

Reminders: 

OPTIONAL SPRING CONFERENCES: Thursday and Friday we will have early dismissal for spring parent teacher conference. These conferences are optional. Please note that these conferences our optional and its only the second week of the last nine weeks. But if you would like to meet with your child's teacher to discuss your child's progress, we would be more than happy to meet with you. 

Ms. Badrak

Mrs. Duncan

Mrs. Ford

Ms. Jackson

Ms. Rozzell

Mrs. Scott

Here is our half day schedule for Thursday and Friday. 
    Thursday:                                                               Friday
7:50- 8:00 Focus Poetry                                 7: 50- 8:00 Focus Poetry
8:10- 9:25 Block One                                      8:10 - 9:00 Specials
9:25 Switch                                                     9:00- 9:50 Block one
9:30- 10:45 Block two                                     9:55- 10:45 Block two
10:45- 11:15 Lunch                                        10: 45-11: 15 Lunch
11:15- 11: 45 Recess                                     11:15- 11: 45 Recess
12:00 Dismissal                                              12:00 Dismissal                    

Language Arts teachers will send home a Scholastic book order this week in Tuesday Newsday.  This order will be due next Tuesday, April 11th. 

Reading 
Last week, we ended our week utilizing useful reading strategies.  We will use what we learned about nonfiction summaries last week to compare and analyze the characteristics of fiction and nonfiction summaries this week.  For instance, great nonfiction summaries include the main idea, or most important ideas, from the beginning, middle, and end of a text.  Great fiction summaries, on the other hand, include CPR (C=Characters, P=Problem, R=Resolution).  We will compare various summaries in order to continue practicing reading strategies across these two genres. Towards the end of the week, our readers will write a fiction summary of their own using what they know about CPR.  

Writing
We have worked very hard during Writer's Workshop to craft our essays.  We will use this week as an opportunity to prepare our essays for publishing week.  We will enter into the process of publishing week next week in order to celebrate and share our final products. We are also going to take some time this week to prepare for National Library Week (April 9th-15th)  where we thank our wonderful librarian, Mrs. Moore, for everything she does for our school!  Students will either write a poem, letter, comic, or persuasive essay that pays tribute to Mrs. Moore.  We are going to deliver these to her on Monday!   

Spelling
Students will receive new spelling words on Thursday, April 6th.  They will take a test on these words on Thursday, April 13th.   April 14th- April 21st, teachers will be looking for students to apply those spelling patterns correctly in their reading and writing work.

Social Studies
We will continue our study of arts and culture this week.  We will learn information about arts within a community.  We will reflect and respond to this material using graphic organizers.  

Math 

We finished off last week discussing area of figures. This next week, we will introduce perimeter of a figure. Area and perimeter can often get mixed up, so please take time to discuss both of these vocabulary words. Please take some time this week and get on Dreambox. Please use this link to get the login page. https://play.dreambox.com/login/yf4j/c78d

In this perimeter unit, we will also look at problem solving for missing side length of figures. We will be working on using good strategies when trying to solve these type problems. One of these strategies will be to add up all the side lengths and then subtract from the perimeter.  We studied in our geometry unit about how rectangles have opposite sides that are equal to the other. This knowledge of rectangles will help students find the missing side length when perimeter is unknown.




Science
We will start this week with the solar system assessment. Tuesday - Friday we will explore the fourth planet from the Sun... Mars. We will look at what attributes this planet has and how it differs from other planets in our solar system. After we discuss Mars and review solar system  characteristics, we will have a short quiz on Thursday.  Please keep practicing with your child the order of the planets and have your child share their learning about Mars this week. 

Week 2

Reminders: First day packet forms are due Friday, September 2.
We have a school holiday, Monday, September 5.  We hope you will have a safe and fun Labor Day weekend.

Reading: We will continue to build routines and establish expectations for Reader's Workshop. This week students will continue to talk about our thinking while we read.  Students will participate in discussions on: What was the story about?  How do you know if you have picked a good book? What do you do when you get hung up on something in your book?  How can you track your thinking while you read?

Teachers will begin pulling students for reading assessments.  This time with your student helps us get to know them a bit more as a reader.  Please know that reading teachers will pull all 40 students for assessments during the month of September.  You do not need to prep your child for this reading time.  The assessment will give us a good look at a starting point for our instruction and guide our creation of small groups.

Classes will get to the library for the first time this week.  Our schedule is below.  We hope that many of you will volunteer in the library and help us navigate our way to great books!

Badrack/Jackson- Tuesdays at 12:40

Duncan/Ford- Wednesdays at 9:00

Rozzell/Scott- Thursdays at 9:00

Writing:  It was a pleasure to watch your children build their Writer's Notebooks this week.  It was a wonderful opportunity for us to get to know each other better and for the storytelling and sharing to begin!  This week in writing we will continue to build anchors and lists of stories we might be able to share.  Students will generate ideas and practice focused storytelling in partners before moving to writing in their journals.  
We'd love you help at home!  Cultivate a culture of storytelling at home.  Everyone LOVES a good story.  Stories we love to hear have a point and share an event we have in common with those around us or an interesting event that has made an impact on who we are.

Word Work:  This week we will administer the Words Their Way Inventory.  This assessment will be given three times throughout the school year to track students progress and developmental understanding of how words and spelling patterns work.  This assessment is not graded.  It will be used for information to help develop lessons and small groups that will target your child's learning needs.

Social Studies: We will introduce our Social Studies resources to students this week.  They will work to build their Social Studies resource folder and journal.  We will also use our story sharing in Writing to continue to build our classroom community.

Math:Last week in math we learned about classroom procedures and routines. We began reviewing some second grade skills. This week we will continue working on standard form, word form, and expanded form on numbers up to 100,000. 

This week we will be discussing in greater depth the value of each place.  The students will be taught strategies on how to compare and order numbers using the greater than and less than sign.  We will be introducing some new Math Station games to the kids to practice these skills as well. Last week, I encouraged your child to begin practicing their math facts every night or five minutes. The class blog has some great websites to practice - you can find these under the Math Websites page on the right side of the blog.

Science: We skimmed the surface in Science last week.  The kids made a title page and table of contents for their Science Journal and decorated them with Science Icons.  On Thursday we talked about “What is a Scientist?” We discovered all the different types of Scientists that exist and began working on our first project.  In Science next week we will be going through Lab Safety procedures and learning the names of many Science tools.  On Tuesday,  we will take a gallery walk with a partner and work on categorizing tools by tools that are used for observation, safety, measurement, or recording.