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!