It's Friday.... It seems like it's been a long time since we had a five day week! We've worked really hard this week - learning new things and reviewing others. I've been giving a lot of MSA practice questions this week - trying to review/teach strategies for answering the questions. This will continue until the test in March. When working with your child at home - any subject - have them explain their thinking - this will help greatly, as a lot of the questions contain BCR's (Brief Constructed Response).
Now... on to what we've been doing!
Language Arts: We're into our new unit, "Reading Science Texts". We've integrated our Science unit "Rocks, Soil, and Fossils" with it and the kids are reading articles about rocks, soil, and fossils. With the article, they will be using note cards to write facts. These facts will then be turned into power points. My hope is that each student will create a powerpoint with the information gathered. A lofty goal... but I know we can do it!
Math: We're starting a unit on Multiplication/Division. While they need to learn their facts, we're starting off with some deeper understanding - drawing pictures, saying it with words, showing repeated addition - if this sounds confusing to you... ask your child!
Science: We've got worms!!! Our tubs of composting are coming along fine. Please continue to send in food for them. Your child can tell you what is acceptable and what isn't! The purpose is to show the kids how decomposers help the soil. We've also been identifying the difference between rocks and minerals. We'll be doing some fun experiments with this next week!
Writing: Our Writing Trait focus this month is on "Voice". We've been listening to music (thanks to Mr. Clutz), reviewing art work, and listening to stories, to see that everyone puts their own "voice" to their work. Hopefully this will carry over to their writing. For most pieces of writing they are now being graded on Ideas, Organization, Conventions, and now Voice. Conventions seems to be the area of most need - please check over your child's work and make him/her change misspelled words, capitals, punctuation, does it make sense?...
Cursive: We have now finished all lower case letters! We will beginning on upper case. At times, they will be expected to write an entire task in cursive. Practice, practice, practice...
Other things going on: Our Valentine's Day party is February 12th. A note came home with the names of our students attached. Please call/send in a note to Meena Bassan so she can have all the help/food she needs! The time of the party is 2:30-3:15. Jim McCown (Mr. Jim as the kids call him) will be planning the games. Please come!
UES is collecting change for Unicef to help the children in Haiti. There are containers as soon as the kids walk into the school where they can put their change.
Well, that's it for now... have a wonderful weekend!
Friday, January 29, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Happy Monday!
I can't believe how long it's been since I've updated this blog! Hopefully, this will be a 5-day week! I know the kids and I really need it! (Of course I probably won't be saying this on Friday afternoon!)
Just a quick update for this week:
Language Arts: We're reading biographies and writing summaries about the person we've read about. Most of the books are about people the students have never heard of, so it's fun to see them learn about someone new.
Math: Hopefully you received the parent letters explaining what's going on in math. We've started a Geometry unit and have been identifying shapes. This week we'll be working on perimeter and area.
Social Studies: We're ending our unit on Peoples of the Nation and World and will be beginning a Science Unit called "Rocks, Soil, and Fossils". Don't be surprised if homework one night is to bring in scraps of food for our compost with worms!
Writing: We're finishing up a descriptive paragraph on favorite holidays or food and a personal narrative on what was done over the holiday break. I'm hoping to get both finished and to final copy this week. I'm really stressing the Conventions writing trait - grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
Have a great week!
Thanks for everything you do to make my life easier!
Faith Humerick
I can't believe how long it's been since I've updated this blog! Hopefully, this will be a 5-day week! I know the kids and I really need it! (Of course I probably won't be saying this on Friday afternoon!)
Just a quick update for this week:
Language Arts: We're reading biographies and writing summaries about the person we've read about. Most of the books are about people the students have never heard of, so it's fun to see them learn about someone new.
Math: Hopefully you received the parent letters explaining what's going on in math. We've started a Geometry unit and have been identifying shapes. This week we'll be working on perimeter and area.
Social Studies: We're ending our unit on Peoples of the Nation and World and will be beginning a Science Unit called "Rocks, Soil, and Fossils". Don't be surprised if homework one night is to bring in scraps of food for our compost with worms!
Writing: We're finishing up a descriptive paragraph on favorite holidays or food and a personal narrative on what was done over the holiday break. I'm hoping to get both finished and to final copy this week. I'm really stressing the Conventions writing trait - grammar, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.
Have a great week!
Thanks for everything you do to make my life easier!
Faith Humerick
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