Weekly Update: Oct. 1-5

Weekly Update

Important Reminders:

• Library is Monday - please plan to being your books to return or renew.
• Cahokia Mounds field trip is Thursday.  We will be gone from 9-2 (weather depending).  Please remember to bring a lunch, and wear comfortable clothes and shoes.  FYI - The lunch can be in a normal lunch box with ice packs because we can leave the lunches on the bus until we are ready to eat.  
• PLEASE practice multiplication facts!  The students need to really know them quickly, and without having to use strategies to solve them.  We will be starting multi-digit multiplication and long division soon, and having those multiplication facts memorized will be a HUGE help!  On Google Classroom (just log in with your child's username and password, then save that to your computer, and you will then have access whenever) I put some multiplication websites and game directions under the "classwork" tab and then under the "Websites" topic.  Thanks for your help with practicing these facts!

• Please remember to check, and initial, your child's planner every night.  Homework and important notes are written in the planner daily.  Thanks for your help with this!
• Please send a snack with your child that is NUT FREE every day, as we do not eat lunch until 12:10.  Thanks!

Important Dates to Remember:

• Oct. 1-5 - Leader of the Week = Michael
• Oct. 4 - Cahokia Mounds field trip
• Oct. 5 - Family Trivia Night (I will be there as a judge so make sure you say hello!)
• Oct. 8-12 - Leader of the Week = Rose
• Oct. 8 - I am out in the afternoon for a Words Their Way (spelling) training.
• Oct. 11 - Michael's Birthday
• Oct. 15-19 - Leader of the Week = Caroline
• Oct. 19 - End of First Quarter
• Oct. 19 - Half Day of School (Dismissal is 11:40), Buddies, and Ability Awareness activity.
• Oct. 19 - I will be taking a personal day to go out of town for my daughter's soccer tournament.  
• Oct. 22 - Rose's Birthday
• Oct. 22-26 - Leader of the Week = Alen
• Oct. 26 - No School 
• Oct. 27 - Noah's Birthday
• Oct. 29- Nov. 2 - Leader of the Week = Alex
• Oct. 31 - Fall Festival (includes the Pumpkin Run, Class Parties, and more..)

Check Out What We Are Learning This Week:

Writing:  
We are continuing to work on our Mystery pieces this week.  We extended the drafting time by several days, due to the amount of writing these kiddos are doing.  They are really working hard on these pieces!  We will peer edit with our "Super Sleuth Editing Pg" the end of this week, add any final touches after that, and then celebrate our Mysteries on Oct. 10th.  

Reading:  
Here is a picture of Rob's Suitcase from our celebration.  The students discussed what Rob kept hidden in his "suitcase" and why.  Then, they worked together to make pictures of those things for the suitcase.  

We will continue to focus on Theme this week.  The students will be able to identify the theme of a text, as well as use evidence from the text to support the them they chose.  The students will also be able to explain the difference between Theme and Main Idea.  I added the anchor charts for all of Reading Unit 1 (characters and theme) to the Google Classroom.  You will find them under the "Classwork" tab, and then under the "Reading" topic. 

Read Aloud:

We began Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn.  We are loving this book!  We are identifying some clues the author leaves for us as we read, and some are even making predictions about the "mystery" in the book.  They never want me to stop reading when it is time!  We can't wait to finish this book and solve the "mystery" of the unknown character "T."

Math:  
We will spend two days reviewing Ch. 3, and then test on Wednesday, Oct. 3.  On Friday we will start Ch. 4: Multiply with One Digit Numbers.  Our first lesson will be Multiples of 10, 100, and 1,000.  We will be multiplying three and four digit numbers by a one digit number in this chapter.  

Spelling:  
Our second spelling test will be on Tuesday, Oct. 9.

Social Studies:  
We completed our third Social Studies chapter on Friday!  The students worked really hard this chapter making their Native American Regions Lapbooks.  They learned a lot about the different regions, including the clothing they wore, the food they ate, the environment in that region, the transportation they used, and the types of houses they lived in.  We will have fun seeing things we learned about at Cahokia Mounds on Thursday.  

Science:

 We will begin our first Science unit: Energy Conversions this week.  In the first chapter we will be answering the questions how does the electrical system work?  We will be learning about the electrical system while trying to solve a real world problem (in a fictitious town) of what happened to the electrical system the night of the blackout? The students will be able to explain what a system is, what can electrical energy in a system be used for, and what the different forms of energy (light, motion, sound, and thermal) are.    

Have a great week!

September Book of the Month

We read the book “Chocolate Milk Por Favor” today to celebrate diversity!  We discussed what makes us different, what empathy is, how to be a good friend to everyone, and spreading kindness with actions not just words!  A Table Talk Page is coming home today so you can discuss these topics more as a family if you wish.

#concordcares

Leader of the Week - Kaybree

Weekly Update: Sept. 24-28

Weekly Update

Important Reminders:

• Picture Day is Wednesday!  Bring your sweet smiles and your picture forms.
• Please return Cahokia Mounds field trip permission slips as soon as possible.  Thanks!
• PLEASE practice multiplication facts!  The students need to really know them quickly, and without having to use strategies to solve them.  We will be starting multi-digit multiplication and long division soon, and having those multiplication facts memorized will be a HUGE help!  Thanks for your help with this!  Flashcards, ALEKS Quick Tables, and Xtra Math are great resources for practicing facts.  Below are some links to game directions that you can also use to play at home for practice: 

                           Multiplication War (you just need a deck of cards)

                           Game Time

                           Multiplication Mix-Up

• Please remember to check, and initial, your child's planner every night.  Homework and important notes are written in the planner daily.  Thanks for your help with this!
• Please send a snack with your child that is NUT FREE every day, as we do not eat lunch until 12:10.  Thanks!

Important Dates to Remember:

• Sept. 24-28 - Leader of the Week = Kaybree
• Sept. 26 - Picture Day (order forms went home already.  If you need another one, please let me know.)
• Sept. 28 - No School - District PD Day
• Oct. 1-5 - Leader of the Week = Michael
• Oct. 4 - Cahokia Mounds field trip
• Oct. 5 - Family Trivia Night (I will be there as a judge so make sure you say hello!)
• Oct. 8-12 - Leader of the Week = Rose
• Oct. 11 - Michael's Birthday
• Oct. 15-19 - Leader of the Week = Caroline
• Oct. 19 - End of First Quarter
• Oct. 19 - Half Day of School (Dismissal is 11:40) & Buddies
• Oct. 22 - Rose's Birthday
• Oct. 22-26 - Leader of the Week = Alen
• Oct. 26 - No School 
• Oct. 27 - Noah's Birthday
• Oct. 29- Nov. 2 - Leader of the Week = Alex
• Oct. 31 - Fall Festival (includes the Pumpkin Run, Class Parties, and more..)

Check Out What We Are Learning This Week:

Writing:  
We are continuing to work on our Mystery pieces this week.  We have listened to several fun mystery books to use as mentor texts for our writing.  We planned out our Mystery piece using the "Detective Case Report" graphic organizer.  These kiddos are learning some fun new "mystery" words/vocabulary as well.  This week, they will use their Case Reports to draft their piece.  On Thursday, they will look at their pieces with their writing partners, and with the "Super Sleuth" peer editing page.  

Reading:  
This week we will be celebrating our first Reading Unit, along with the read aloud Tiger Rising.  In Tiger Rising, the main character, Rob, keeps his thoughts and feelings all locked up in a "suitcase."  We spent a lot of time discussing this suitcase, as well as Rob and Sistine (a friend he meets in the book).  We will spend time filling up Rob's suitcase with things that were important to the story.  We will have some fun discussions about the book, the items the kiddos chose, as well as reviewing what we learned in this unit.

We will also spend a few days focusing on Theme.  The students will be able to understand the difference between main idea and theme, will be able to recognize and explain the theme of a story using details from the text.  
Read Aloud:
We finished Nine, Ten: A September 11th Story.  It was a great book!  We had a lot of great discussions while we read the book.  After reading the Author's Note at the end, I shared with the students a book called 14 Cows for America.  This book shows how people in another country (Africa) helped the United States after 9/11.  

I will begin our third read aloud on Monday.  I am going to read a fairly short chapter book called, Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn.  It is a mystery, so I want to read this book as the students are writing their mysteries.  I explained to the kiddos that this book is a mystery, but it is not a scary story.  No nightmares for us!  :) 
Math:  
We will continue with Ch. 3 this week.  We will spend some more time on the Associative Property, as this is an important skill.  We will also spend two days on Factors and Multiples.  This is a hard skill to catch on to, especially if multiplication facts are not known, so we like to give the kiddos plenty of time learning and practicing this skill as possible.  We will also do some work with problem solving.  We will have two days to review for the test (Oct. 1 & 2), and our test will be Wednesday, Oct. 3.  

Spelling:  
The first spelling tests went home on Friday.  New words will be coming home Monday.  We will spend 9 days working with our words like last time.  We will test on the 10th day, which is Tuesday, Oct. 9.

Social Studies:  
We are finishing learning about the different Native American Regions this week.  We have the Eastern Woodlands and the Southeast Region left.  We will complete our lapbooks, and will spend some time watching some Discovery Education videos about the different regions.  We watched two last Friday, and the kids really enjoyed seeing what the Native American's life was like in those regions. 

Science:

 We will begin our first Science chapter on Oct. 1st.

Have a great week!

Character Trait Book Snap on Seesaw

The students showed their knowledge of character traits during reading today.  They had to prove the trait they chose to describe their character with evidence from their book.  

Check out pics below of the kiddos working hard, and Seesaw for their completed assignment.

Buddies -Playing a Kindness Game

International Dot Day

International Dot Day was Sept. 15th.  We celebrated this day on Friday, Sept. 14th.  We celebrated by reading and discussing the book “The Dot” by Peter Reynolds.  We talked about how we can make our mark on the world.  We ended the celebration by coloring our own dots to display in the hall.  Everything starts with just a dot!

*some are not finished with their dots.  Their pics will be added once they are.