Social Studies/Science:
We continue to work with Ms. Carew's class for our continents and oceans unit. We track the weather in approximately 5 cities/countries on each continent for three days, discuss time zones, explore the amount of sunlight to determine the seasons, look at maps to identify oceans all around each continent, discuss plants and animals on each continent, and explore the different cultures within each continent. Students are getting very good at predicting time and temperature!
A friend of mine went to Antarctica a year ago, so we will be video conferencing with her to hear her thoughts, ask questions, and even see her warm coat and her husband's HUGE boots (size 17!) that took up an entire suitcase.
Ways to help at home:
- Find books or videos on continents or oceans.
- Have your child tell you all they know about the continent we have been studying.
- Create a story that takes place on a continent we have studied.
Word Study:
Students continue to participate in word study each day. We will continue with word study throughout the last quarter. I have spoken with many parents about sending word study home for summer work. If I have not talked with you about this and you are interested, let me know and I will be sure to send it home based on where we leave off at the end of the year.
Writing:
Students continue to write different stories about their lives or fictional stories using pictures to help them develop their story. We are just finishing a fun story where students write about a character and TWO setting... the reader gets to choose which setting they want the character to be in. Students then write one problem, but two different solutions to that story and the reader chooses which ending they want to read!
We will begin writing poetry next week! I am so excited to give them a chance to explore a new writing style to spark more of their creativity.
Ways to help at home:
- All students should continue working on capitalization and punctuation within sentences.
- Give them a question to respond to in one paragraph.
- Write a rhyming poem!
Reading:
Students continue to read for approximately 40 minutes in class each day. At times, they read to me, read to a partner, or read independently. We continue to work on comprehension strategies.
Students have been reading non-fiction books and are able to identify the text features, such as bold print, headings, a table of contents, a glossary, photographs and captions. Students are able to tell why the text features are so important to them as a reader. Ask your child to point out a non-fiction text feature!
We will review reading with prosody (expression, intonation, character voices, etc.) with our poetry unit. Students will "perform" for classmates once they've had a chance to practice. As you know, practice makes perfect!
Ways to help at home:
- As always, continue to have your child read between 20-30 minutes per day.
- Make predictions using events in your book and your schema.
- Read and reread poetry to improve prosody and build confidence!
Math:
Students learned about three different types of graphs. They learned about bar graphs, line plots, and pictographs. Students came up with a question they wanted to know about their peers. Next, they collected data, placed it in a chart, and then made graphs with the data. They loved this!
Here are a few we did together...
We continue to add larger numbers and discuss different strategies students use. I believe the discussions are helpful for most students so they can find a strategy that works best for them. Students use blocks, number lines and the expanded strategy to help them solve problems. Here are a few examples...
Ways to help at home:
- Ask your child how to play Collect $1.00!
- Continue to work with your child on telling time (we have been working on time to 5 minutes) and counting money.
- Continue to allow your child to work on ST Math at home, which will greatly build their number sense!
- Not many students are using Reflex Math, so please don't forget to build fact fluency at home.
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