March 24, 2017 Update...

Dear Parents,

I hope you get some good outside time this beautiful spring weekend! The students worked hard in class, so they are in need of some good hard outside playing. Here's what we did this week...

Phonics/Grammar:  We reviewed the long o  spelling pattern in two syllable words.  We also reviewed simple and compound sentences and learned about complex sentences. We created a list of subordinating conjunctions to use in this type of sentence.

Reading:  We took our quarter 3 Touchstone reading assessment.  We started a new class read aloud, Spiderwick Chronicles.  We looked closely at challenging passages and reviewed all the ways that authors give us clues to help us determine the meaning of harder words.  We worked in small groups with on-level passages. We picked out new chapter books for our book clubs.  We also read several nonfiction passages in preparation of our writing this week.

Writing: We studied a typical extended writing response we might see on the Milestone Assessment.  This week, our focus was writing an informational piece that compared two types of skates; in line skates and roller skates.  Ask your child how many points he/she scored on this practice writing. I gave each child specific feedback about the writing and how it could be improved.  The writing was scored on a 4 point rubric; 4 being the highest possible.

Math: We began our 2-D geometry unit. We spent most of our week learning new vocabulary; polygon, quadrilateral, parallel lines, right angle, acute angle, obtuse angle, and vertex.  We listed  attributes we can look at to compare two geometric figures. We created a t-chart and compared and contrasted two shapes.

Content:  We learned about magnets in Science. The week ended with all of the students experimenting with various types of magnets, identifying the north and south poles, looking at how they repel or attract based on the poles, and learning how the magnetic field affects things in our world.

News and Announcements...

Congratulations to Addie Wells and Lauren Ablashi for their amazing performance in the Variety Show!

If you haven't done  so already, please sign  and return the large report card envelope. There is a place for your signature on the front.

Monday we will have our picnic lunch. We earned this as a Boosterthon prize.  You will not need to do anything. If your child buys lunch, he/she will still be able to do so.  I will have some picnic blankets, but if your child wants to bring a small blanket, that will be fine.