Class Update October 28, 2017

Important Dates:

Sunday, October 29th- Trunk or Treat at Long from 4:00-6:00 in the parking lot

Tuesday, October 31st- Halloween parade at 1:40 and party from 2:00-3:00

Wednesday, November 8th- Early Release (dismissal at 1:40)

Friday, November 10th- Veterans Day Assembly

Friday, November 17th- Picture retake day


Writing:  At the end of the quarter, we had a pajama/flashlight day to celebrate our personal narrative writing!  We turned out the lights and read each others stories with flashlights.   The students enjoyed reading the compliments that their classmates left for them about their writing.  Below are pictures of students conferencing with their writing partners before they completed their personal narratives.

                                     

We have just begun our next writing unit where students will be learning about informational writing.  We are learning about the importance of paraphrasing when doing research on a topic.  The students practiced paraphrasing with their writing partners. 

Our first informational piece will have a social studies connection.  Students will be choosing a topic about Native Americans.  They will be able to find something related to Native Americans that they are interested in.  Some examples are food, homes, art, weapons, sports, and games.


Reading:  We just finished up our first read aloud book called Home of the Brave.  When reading this book, we focused on theme, characters, author's perspective, and more.  In small groups, we just finished up learning about characters.  We will soon begin learning about the different ways an author can organize informational text.  The students started their second book club book last week, and they seem excited about their books!  Students chose what book they are reading for their book club, and they had a variety of different genres from which to choose.  Ask them to tell you about the book they are reading!

Math:  We just finished up chapter 3 with our quiz on Thursday.  We will be moving on to chapter 4, which is also division but with two-digit divisors.  Please have your child continue to practice his or her multiplication facts at home.  Most students do not have them memorized, and this slows them down a lot during math.

Science:  We are having a lot of fun in science!  The water cycle and weather are the focus of our current unit.  We learned that heat speeds up evaporation by doing an experiment with paper towels.  We put drops of water on paper towels, and then we placed one of the paper towels on a bag of hot water and one on a bag of cold water.  Students observed that the drop on the paper towel over the hot water evaporated much faster than the one on the cold water. 

To learn about condensation, we put hot water in a plastic cup and placed another cup on top as a lid.  Students noticed that the water vapor that was formed from the hot water evaporating cooled down when it reached the top of the cup and condensed back into liquid water drops.  Then, we repeated the experiment with ice on the lid to show how condensation can be sped up by colder temperatures. 

We made shaving cream clouds and added drops of water onto the cloud until it got too heavy and precipitated. 

Social Studies:  Miss Scalise has been teaching about the United States becoming an independent country and how a new government was formed under the Constitution.  Students are starting a project where they research an important person from America's history and learn how that person helped make changes to our country. 

Class Update September 30, 2017

Important Dates:

Friday, October 13th- End of first quarter; Half day for students

Monday, October 23rd- Parent teacher conferences; Book fair begins

Wednesday, October 25th- Parent teacher conferences

Friday, October 27th- NO SCHOOL

Sunday, October 29th- Trunk or Treat


Writing:  We have finished our first personal narrative pieces, and we are currently working on our second narrative piece.  Students are focusing on adding in a blend of dialogue, action/description, and their thoughts and feelings into their narratives.  This helps create an interesting story for the reader.  The goal is to finish this piece by the end of the quarter.


Reading:  We have been learning about how the author's point of view and perspective affect us as readers.  We also just started learning about the theme of fiction stories in our mini lessons.  Guided reading groups have been going well, and students have been finding evidence in the text to support their thinking.  Another component of our reading time is spent on book clubs.  The book clubs meet on Tuesdays and Fridays.  Students are responsible for reading the chapters assigned as well as writing a thick question to discuss with their groups before the meeting date.  Students should be finished with their first book clubs in a few weeks, and then they will decide what they want to read next.  Below are pictures of book clubs in action!

Math:  We just had a quiz over the beginning of chapter two which focused on exponents and prime factorization.  The rest of the chapter deals with multiplication.  Please have your child practice their multiplication facts at home nightly so they can become automatic.  This will really help them as we are doing multiplication and division.

Science:  In science, we have been learning about designing fair tests when performing investigations.  We just started our Oreo project. Students will be making observations and designing an investigation to experiment with Oreos.  Next week, check with your child to see what testable question they come up with relating to Oreos!  Below are pictures of the students making qualitative observations of the cookies. 

Social Studies:  Miss Scalise will begin teaching about the Declaration of Independence in Social Studies. 

Class Update September 15, 2017

Important Dates:

Friday, September 22nd- NO SCHOOL- Teacher Professional Development

Wednesday, September 27th- Picture Day

We took a break from our regular morning meeting today and had some quick Friday fitness fun!  A lot of the kids really got into it.

Writing:  The students have been working hard on their personal narrative pieces.  We have been focusing on elaborating in our writing.  This includes adding dialogue, sensory details, and description.  This coming week we will be editing and putting the finishing touches on this piece.  Then, students be choosing another idea to develop for our second narrative piece.  


Reading;  Students are learning to write about their reading.  We are focusing on fiction skills, and we have been making inferences about the plot and the characters in books.  Starting next week, students will be in a book club where they are reading and discussing a novel in small groups.  This is a lot of fun for them as the book clubs are mostly student led.  They also have choice in deciding what book they want to read for their book club.  Please make sure your child is reading nightly.  Students who read for long chunks of time will progress much faster than those who do not.

Math:  We are currently wrapping up chapter one.  Our test will be on Tuesday, and the students have a study guide that will help them prepare.  You can also access the online math book by following the instructions under the online textbooks tab on my blog.  In our next chapter, we will be learning about prime factorization and multiplication of whole numbers.  Please have you child practice his or her multiplication facts so that they are memorized.  Knowing math facts quickly and accurately helps save your child time when getting into multiplying larger numbers.

Science:   In science, we are continuing to learn about the scientific method.  We have formed several testable questions and carried out experiments to find out the answers to our questions.  We made a hypothesis and then investigated to find out if black or white cups of water would get hotter in the sun.  We then related this back to real life such as deciding what color to wear on a hot, sunny day.  We even tied it in to the differences between black and white cars.   In another fun experiment, students tested three different paper towel brands to see which was more absorbent.  We found that Bounty outperformed the Costco brand and the school paper towel brand.  By doing this experiment, we learned about variables, graphing data, and drawing conclusions.  Last week, we also took a quick walk over to GEMPP park and explored the area.  We used this to make observations and to think of more possible questions we could investigate.

Social Studies: The students are studying the causes that led to the American Revolution.  Next, we will be learning about the Declaration of Independence.