It's been another very busy week at school!
We just finished up the story
Tops & Bottoms and took our selection test today. We worked on the skill of recognizing the author's purpose for writing a story this week. Tomorrow we are going to begin reading
William's House. This story is great for this time of year because it tells about a man's experience with building a house in the late 1600's. We will work on the comprehension skill of drawing conclusions. The kids will learn to pay attention to the facts in a story and put that information with what they already know to come to a conclusion about something. We will also practice asking questions of ourselves as we read. It's important to ask why certain characters act they way they do or why certain things happen in a story. This will help readers understand what it is they are reading, which of course, is the whole purpose for reading!
We are going to kind of "push" the kids in the next week. We'll take our selection test for William's House on Monday, then begin working on our Unit 2 Benchmark Assessment. The goal is to finish this up before we leave for Thanksgiving break. We have A LOT to do in the next week!
In math, we have started work on multiplication and what it means. Tomorrow, we will work on division. We have a lot to work on in this unit. I would encourage you to begin to work on multiplication facts at home along with additon and subtraction facts. It's easy to practice these in the car on the way to school, or for a few minutes each night at home. Make practicing a game by getting out a deck of cards...your child can show you a game or two to practice facts.
In science, we've started to work on our Measurement unit. We've done some measuring in math already this year, so the kids will have some background knowledge with some of the things they'll be learning. During social studies, we talked about Veterans Day and what it means to be a veteran. We read the story
Hero Dad, and then we wrote letters to Dylan's brother who is a soldier in Iraq. Tomorrow, we'll read about the Thanksgiving holiday and how it got started. We'll begin to make pilgrim flip books to summarize what we learn.
In writing, we are working on writing "how to" reports. Tomorrow we're going to finish up our planning sheets and begin to work on our introduction. We're learning about how important it is to put the events of a how to report in order and how to use time order words like "first, next, then, after that, and finally". It'll be interesting to see if we could actually "do" the things they kids are going to write about "how to" do. :)
Your child will bring home a new spelling list today. We will take the test over these words on Wednesday, November 24th.
Don't forget that next Wednesday is a 2:00 Early Out. There is no school on Thursday & Friday.
I sent home a flyer about the Holiday Hop. This will be held on DECEMBER 10th. I think there was a mistake in one part of the flyer (it read November 10th). I'm sure all of you understood the mistake since November 10th has already passed, but I thought I'd clarify.
Hopefully your child did some reading at home this week and you took the time to record the books in his/her planner. Keep on reading at home! :)
Homework for Thursday, November 18
- Home Link 4.3
- Cursive sheet
- Read
- Study Spelling Words
If I don't blog again before Thanksgiving....I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday. May you get to spend quality time with friends and family members, and may you enjoy every minute of it!
Have a great day!
Mrs. Vroegh
