Class Update 9/30/17

Important Reminders:

Field Trip Permission Slips went home last week for our field trip to the Butterfly House. Please sign and return the slip with the $9.00 fee to school with your child. Thank you!

Class Updates:

In math, we have started Chapter 2 on Number Patterns. The students have been practicing skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s. Next week, we will focus on lessons 3-6, which cover concepts including repeated addition, arrays, and even vs. odd numbers. If your child needs fact fluency practice on addition or subtraction facts, another good website for them to use at home is Front Row. There is a fact practice choice in the math section. A link is provided under "Important Links" on this blog and students have login information on the lists in their green folders.

In reading, we have been continuing to decode tricky words. Students are also working on stopping to check for understanding and making predictions about what they will read in their reading groups.

For our personal narrative writing unit, the children learned the importance of adding transition words to their writing to help it flow. They worked with their writing partners to share their work and give each other feedback in the form of a "glow" for something they did well, and a "grow" for something they can improve upon in their next story. The students are working on a second narrative piece and once they are done, they will be choosing one of their narratives to publish.

We continued to learn about landforms and changes to the earth's surface in science by trying to answer the question, "Why is there sand at the beach?" The children watched videos, had discussions with their learning partners, and worked cooperatively in groups to simulate how large boulders can be broken down into smaller and smaller rocks as they travel in rivers from high land to low land. They learned that sand is really made from tiny rocks! The children also examined different types of sand and pebbles with magnifying glasses so they could see the many shapes and colors that made up the sand. We will continue to learn about the concepts of erosion and weathering next week.