September 9th Update...

Hi Parents,

I hope you have a great weekend!  Check out below to see what we've been doing  in class this week...

Grammar/Spelling:  We continued our study of nouns, focusing on pronouns this week. We learned how and why to replace certain nouns with pronouns (to reduce repetition).  We  also learned about irregular plural nouns.  We played several games to help  us remember the spelling patterns and we also added a few pages to our interactive grammar notebook.  The weekly spelling test will be Monday!  We'll get our new list after the test.

Writing:  We learned how to edit a story for correct capitalization, punctuation, spelling, and grammar. We used one student's narrative to show the editing process and then we worked in small groups to collaborate on our papers.  We added the cover page and turned in our narratives.  Later in the week, we learned a new brainstorming technique to help us come up with new story ideas.  We thought of "strong emotions" such as sadness, grief, anger, happiness, and fear.   We then listed times when we felt those emotions. This is  the first step towards writing our second complete narrative.

Reading:  We read several chapters in  The White Giraffe.  We focused on what strategies good readers use to recall details from the story.  We talked about what story elements we will almost always find in novels; setting details, characters and character traits, important dialogue, events that lead to a climax (problem), and then a final resolution (not always a happy solution!). We discussed important plot events in this part of the story and practiced answering comprehension questions completely and accurately (using text evidence to prove our answers).  We also read independently in our book club books in order to prepare for our next small group meeting. In small groups, we worked on more challenging sight word vocabulary that might be encountered in their book club selections and in the class novel.

Math:  I introduced multiplication and division to the students.  We learned the vocabulary associated with these two operations (factors and product, divisor, dividend and quotient).  We learned how to make equal groups to solve both types of equations. We then learned how to more efficiently solve multiplication by using repeated addition.  Next week, we will move on to using arrays to solve both types of equations.  In small groups, some students learned about Pascal's Triangle and began identifying mathematical patterns.  Some students reviewed two step word problems using addition and subtraction, and other students worked on correctly adding and subtracting with regrouping.

Class News and Announcements...

If your child has not had a chance to get on IXL and complete the assignment from last week, encourage that at some point this week.

Testing is going very well!  The CoGAT was quick and not too painful!  The kids did a great job with the extra "quiet seat work" time last week.  We will continue with our standardized testing this Thursday.  We will have four consecutive days of  the Iowa Test of Basic Skills.  Remember to have your child here at school and on time!

Remember to encourage at least thirty minutes of independent reading every night. It's also a great idea to model good reading for your child and to let them see how reading is woven into your life. Do they see you reading the newspaper, reading articles and work-related papers, or books simply for your enjoyment?

Thank you to all the parents who sent in prize box items and "after testing" snacks!  We appreciate those items!