Class Update 12/22/17

Important Reminders:

Happy holidays! Enjoy your winter break. School resumes on Thursday, January 4th.

Six Flags Read to Succeed Program:  Reading Logs were sent home with students for the Six Flags Reading Program. If students record six extra hours of reading outside of school time, they can earn a free ticket to Six Flags at the end of the school year! If your child would like to participate, fill out and sign the reading log and send it back to school with your child by February 26th.

Class Updates:

We had a lot of holiday fun this week!

Students listened to some wonderful holiday stories like Auntie Claus and Silver Packages read to them by Mrs. Robb and Dr. Albers. Mr. Jobst's dad was kind enough to drop by to read and play the guitar for a sing along of Christmas carols. We also enjoyed How to Catch an Elf and Turkey Claus. Each child received a copy of Mooseltoe as a holiday gift to read over break. One of Santa's Helpers even dropped by to check up on the kids while Mrs. Robb was reading!

In science, the children learned about the property of transparency while studying the question "Why is snow white?" With the help of partners, they each made snowflake ornaments with waxed paper and glue as part of a Mystery Science activity. Students also made some additional snowflake designs with Q-tips and more glue!

Our winter party was a hit! Thank you to all of the parents who helped to plan and organize the party. The children had a lot of fun making snowmen ornaments, playing a snowball toss game, and especially when being turned into snowmen!

Class Update 12/17/17

Important Reminders:

Our classroom holiday party is on Wednesday from 2:00 - 3:00. Thank you in advance to all of the parents working hard to make this a special event for the students!

Winter break begins on Thursday. School resumes on Thursday, January 4th.

There are no spelling tests this week. Spelling will resume after we return from break.

Class Updates:

We had so much fun on our field trip to the Magic House! Thank you to all of the parent volunteers who helped make this a wonderful experience for the children. Students were able to work at a community job in the Children's Village and then take breaks to spend their hard earned "paychecks" doing a variety of activities. Children also came together as "families" and learned how to plan a yearly budget. They had to make decisions on housing, clothing, and other expenses, as well as plan for savings.

We are spending our time in class finishing up units in non-fiction reading, opinion writing, and two-digit subtraction. We will also focus on some fun holiday activities across all subjects over the next few days. 

Last week, the children completed a writing activity where they filled out job applications to be a reindeer on Santa's team. They were very creative in brainstorming ways to be paid (carrots and kittens!), as well as making up their own reindeer names. The children were able to think of many good qualifications for being on Santa's team, including listening to directions and working well with others.

Class Update 12/10/17

Important Reminders:

Our Magic House Field Trip is on Friday, December 15th. We will be returning to school after our normal lunch time, so students will either need to bring their lunch to school or order a sack lunch from the cafeteria that day.

Class Updates:

Take a look at some of the winter artwork students have created with Mrs. Heller!

We have finished up our lessons on from Chapter 4 in math. The students learned how to check their subtraction work by adding and have been learning strategies to solve one and two-step word problems with subtraction. We will spend the beginning of the week reviewing and will have a test on Wednesday. Review pages will come home with the students to help them prepare.

The class will be wrapping up our study of non-fiction books in reading this week by focusing on sequence of events and the author's purpose. Our latest Scholastic News taught students about the Wampanoag Native Americans and their interactions with the Pilgrims. The children practiced using headings and bold words to help search for text evidence to questions about the article. We will be learning more about Native Americans in social studies third quarter!

Students will finish their second round of opinion letters in writing this week and then pick one draft to publish. They are working hard to elaborate with more examples and details, as well as retell parts of the story to help paint a picture in the reader's mind.

We have started a large unit on matter in science. In the first part of the unit, students learned that matter can have different properties, including size, shape, color, and weight. They participated in a Mystery Science activity that taught about the properties of materials that can be used to make clothing. Then, a challenge was provided for students to pretend they were stranded on a desert island. They needed to design a hat that could protect them from the sun. The children first tested materials to determine which had the properties that would make for a good hat, such as high absorbency. Then, students worked to design their hats. You can see they were very creative!

Class Update 12/1/17

Important Reminders:

Wednesday, December 6th is an Early Release Day with a 1:40 dismissal time. Please make sure your child knows how they are going home in case it is different from their normal routine.

Every Tuesday is our class's library day. Please remind your child to bring their library books to school on that day. A few students have been forgetting to bring their books. Thank you!

Spelling groups are back up and running for the next two weeks. Your child will have a spelling test on their regular day. All students should have their new words in their green folders.

Scholastic Book order forms for December were sent home on Thursday. If you would like to order from Scholastic, please return your order (or order online using the code on the form) by Friday, December 8th. This will allow time for delivery before the holiday break.

Class Updates:

In math, the students have been learning how to subtract from two-digit numbers both with and without regrouping. We have also reviewed the concept of fact families and using related facts to help us remember our basic facts. Please have you child continue to review their basic facts with sums to 20 (and related subtraction facts) regularly at home. Fact fluency is very beneficial to solving larger addition and subtraction problems. Next week, we will continue to work on Chapter 4 with our focus on lessons 6-9.

The children have been working in groups during reading to explore pairs of non-fiction books on the same topics, including whales, George Washington, and rocks and minerals. They are discovering what information is the same and what information is different about a given topic. Students are working on recording the facts they are learning on sticky notes and adding on to their notes when they read something new in another book. The children are also growing in their ability to locate text evidence. We have been using highlighters to find evidence in non-fiction articles.

This week we started a new draft opinion letter in our writing unit. The children have selected another one of their favorite books and in this letter they are going to write three different reasons why they love the book, including reasons related to the characters, pictures, and their favorite parts. We are focusing on using graphic organizers to plan out our reasons and examples before we write. It is fun to see all of the choices students are picking for their favorite books!

The kids have learned a lot in social studies over the past week! Students worked in partners to match pictures of various service jobs to their descriptions. They were also able to go on a pretend shopping trip and spend $10 on a variety of "items". We then discussed which of the items were needs vs. wants. The children learned tips to be a smart consumer, including comparing prices among stores. We will wrap up this unit next week, and the students will be able to put all of their learning into action when we go to the Magic House later this month!