Room 303 News 10-22-18

1. Weekly Updates and Reminders: 

• Daily folders (black) and gray reading folders are to go to and from school each day.  Reading logs are to be filled out at home to log their 20 minutes of nightly reading.  We will be starting the daily reading logs next week.
• Assignment Notebooks (planners) are to be signed or initialed every evening by a parent.  Thank you for taking the time to check your child's planner.  This is a great way to start a conversation about learning if you review it with your child each evening.
• Please always email BOTH teachers if you have any questions or concerns.  

Mark your calendars for our Halloween Parade at 10:30a.m. and our Halloween party from 11a.m. to noon on Wednesday, October 31st.  This is also a half day of school!

 
Math:
We had our first fact fluency test this past Friday.  Please look in your child's black daily folder to see which multiplication table they should be studying this week.  As part of your child's homework routine, they should be studying their facts each night and record such work on the sheet pictured below.  Please sign and return each Thursday!  We continue to build our understanding of multiplication in class.  Below are pictures of the students playing Array Bingo. 

Social Studies:

This past week our learning focused on: How does state government differ from local government?  We looked at laws some Michigan communities have with regard to animals and discussed the importance of communities making laws that directly affect people in their community.   Our learning continued with comparing state and local laws such as laws about fences, drivers' licenses, fishing on the Great Lakes, garage sales and wearing motorcycle helmets.  We determined who should make these laws?  Local or state government?  After our learning, students paired up with a friend to talk about their understanding.

  

Science:
The scientific method is well underway as we begin our experiment on evaporation!  Students will be watching a video to explain the Scientific Method and we will go through each step with an evaporation experiment wherein we are looking at how the surface area affects evaporation rate.
 
This past week we also began talking about the water cycle.  Students made cootie catcher to practice understanding each stage of the cycle.  They loved this activity.  I am keeping the cootie catchers at school for students to use with their science teams them over the next week.



Word Study/Grammar:

This week in grammar, we will be focusing on "beginning three-letter blends, articles, and homonyms"  Their grammar packet is always due on Friday.  We grade these packets over the weekend.  It is usually always sent back with your child on Mondays.  Many students have been leaving parts of their packet blank or not doing quality work and will be asked to fix or complete it and return it to school on Tuesday.

Writing:  We continue to work on our personal narrative stories.  The students are working to add more detail and craft into their stories by continuing to read great books by other authors.  Last week, we learned from the book Fireflies how to add SIMILES into our stories and other figurative language to bring our stories to life!  We also have added to our list of IDIOMS that we can use in our writing. 

Reading:

We continue to focus on Comprehension Strategies while we are reading.  Last week, we worked on writing a good summary.  We talked about only writing the BIG IDEAS from the beginning, middle, and end.  We will continue to work on summaries as well as other comprehension strategies.

We also continue to work on building our stamina during independent reading.  The students are doing a nice job of recording their reading in their reading logs.  They are also getting better at their written responses - writing about their thinking.