06/01/18 Room 303 News

Weekly Updates and Reminders:

• Wow!  We sure have been busy these past two weeks.  We wanted to THANK YOU all for all of your support and donations for Pioneer Day.  The students had an incredible day and we couldn't have done it without you!
•  Also THANK YOU to all of our Parent Chaperones that joined us for our trip to Greenfield Village.  It was definitely a HOT day but we were so fortunate the rain held off and we were all able to have a great time.
• Field Day was a lot of fun!  Again, we had a beautiful day and the kids enjoyed all of the fun activities.  I'm sure the kiddos were tired on Friday night!
• The kids are having fun "Ending our Year with a BANG!"  Each balloon has a student's name inside and each day we pop one and celebrate that special student for the day.  The kiddos are so excited each morning to pop a balloon! They get to choose their seat for the day, pick out a piece of candy, and we all sign a poster telling them what we love about them.  It's been such a fun way to end a great school year!

Math:

Students will be taking the Unit 7 Math Assessment on Tuesday, June 5th.  A study guide and key has been emailed to you if you'd like your child to review at home as well.  In Unit 8, students will deepen and apply their understanding of multiplication, division, measurement and attributes of shapes.  

Social Studies:
We have begun our final unit of social studies, Michigan government.  We will focus on the purpose of government as it relates to Michigan citizens.  Our unit began with an fictional island of Westerly wherein the residents had no laws or local institutions to maintain the common good of it's citizens.  Students identified possible problems Westerly residents encountered daily and decided that state laws were necessary for the common good of all people.


Science:

Students gathered in their science groups to look closely at crayfish structures and record their observations in their Science notebooks.  Our discussion afterwards focused on the function of each unique structure.  Students will be observing the crayfish behavior over the next few weeks and will map where the crayfish spend time within their habitat.  Through readings, observations and videos, students will learn about adaptations of organisms in different environments, including different kinds of group and social behaviors.

Word Study and Grammar:
We will be continuing to work on grammar these last two weeks of school. Below are the final skills we will be focusing on:

Reading:
In reading, we continue to focus on Mysteries.  The students are enjoying the different mysteries they are reading.  They have been working on comprehension and showing their understanding of the text through a variety of text maps.  This has been done with their Book Club as well as with their reading partner.  We will continue to focus on Mysteries these last couple weeks of school.

Writing:

The students are working on writing their own Fairy Tale adaptations.  They have already chosen the "classic Fairy Tale" that they wanted to adapt.  They then worked on the details that they wanted to change while still keeping elements from the original story.  They have really enjoyed this writing unit.  This week we will finish our drafting and begin to publish and add illustrations to our writing.