Tuesday, February 13, 2018

February News

Happy Heart Month!

Parent-teacher conferences will be on March 8th and March 15th.  The front office will send an email when the online scheduler opens for you to sign up.   If you'd like to meet to discuss your child's progress, please use this time for us to meet!

Our Valentine's Day party will be on the 14th at 2:30.  Everyone is welcome to join us.  Students need to bring a bag or box to collect goodies.  If they would like to pass out valentines, one needs to be given to every student.

Remember, there is no school on Friday the 16th as it is a professional development day for teachers.  Enjoy the long weekend!

Below is the focus of our learning at this time.  Please remember that you and your child can find each night's homework posted on this blog every night under the homework tab.

Math:
We are just about to finish our first unit on identifying, rounding, adding and subtracting decimals.  Students are doing a great job with thinking about place value to compare decimal amounts.  We are also using manipulatives such as base ten blocks and money to represent amounts less than one whole.  This a great time to have your children add up your bills, compare gas prices, estimate the total cost at a restaurant, or any other place you see and use decimal amounts.

Our next unit will focus on multiplication and division with fractions and decimals.  This is a great time for baking and halving or doubling recipes!  Also, as multiplication and division with fractions is something that you may need a review on as well, please don't forget about the amazing videos from our math program that I have shared previously.  You may use this link and watch all kinds of short videos on a variety of math topics and grades.  These are great to watch with your child and talk about together.

Also, about half of our class needs to continue practicing math facts at home as students are still not accurate and efficient with multiplication facts.  If you are not sure if your child is practicing or not, ask to see their latest quiz or send me an email.  Thank you for your help!

Reading/Writing
Our strategy focus at this time is on making inferences while we read.  As children are reading more difficult text with layers of meaning, they need to rely on their ability to infer to understand character motivations, author's purpose, theme, and perspectives.  We are working on using the clues found within the text as well as our own background knowledge, questions, and connections to infer.

As we work on these topics in reading, we are then working on responding to reading in writing.  We are applying our work in opinion writing to write and respond to a variety of topics in our texts with organized ideas and supporting evidence.  Students have written a lot of short responses at this time and we will now be choosing one of the shorter prompts to turn into a multi-paragraph response essay.

Students have done a wonderful job participating in book clubs with Newbery Award winning books.  We are finishing the books this week and will be doing final writing reflections around the books' themes and characters.  These are wonderful stories with strong messages and character changes.  Ask your child about their book when you have a chance to hear a great story!

Science
We are just wrapping up our earth science study.  We have examined the water cycle, the uneven heating of the earth and how both of those affect weather and climate.  Students also participated in a wonderful exploration of renewable energy resources through a collaborative teaching time with Mrs. Fleet, our technology teacher.  Ask your child about which energy source they proposed a new company should use, where in the United States they should place it, and the reasoning behind those choices.   Our next unit will be in the area of physical science and focus on mixtures and solutions.