Weekly Update: Oct. 22-26

Weekly Update

Important Reminders:

• 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. 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 Unit 2: Personal and Persuasive Essays this week.  We will continue collecting ideas as essayists, using elaboration prompts to grow ideas, and  choosing a seed idea for our essay - a topic that you want to explore or to argue for,  We will be turning this seed idea into a thesis statement.  ***I uploaded pictures of the Essay anchor charts for this unit  under the "Writing" topic on our Google Classroom. ***

Reading:  

We will continue our next Reading Unit: Reading Informational Books this week.  We will continue to focus on the different Text Structures in informational texts.  The students will continue to learn what each of the text structures are, the importance of them, and how to identify them in a text.   The text structures are - Description, Sequence, Compare and Contrast, Problem and Solution, and Cause and Effect.  We will use lots of different texts as we learn these structures, especially texts on weather.  We will be doing a PBL unit on extreme weather to tie in our reading, writing, and math curriculum, as well as current events.  More info to come on this PBL.   ***I uploaded pictures of the text features anchor chart and the text structures anchor chart to our Google Classroom on the "Reading" topic.*** 

Read Aloud:

We are finishing Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn today.  We can't wait to hear how this book ends!  It has been very suspenseful and exciting.  I will begin the book Out of My Mind tomorrow.  This is an amazing book about an extraordinary eleven year old girl who is the smartest kid in her school, but no one knows it because she is stuck inside her head.  This book allows for some very heart warming conversations about acceptance and inclusion.  I LOVE this book!

Math:  
We are continuing to work through Ch. 4: Multiply with One Digit Numbers.  This week we will multiply by zeros, review, and then take our CH. 4 test on Wednesday.  We will begin Ch. 5: Multiply with Tow-Digit Numbers.  Our first lesson will be multiplying by tens.  Knowing your multiplication facts is extremely important as we move forward in math, so keep practicing those facts! 

Spelling:  

We will begin learning the patterns of the words for our next spelling sort in our units.  We will also take our Sight Word test over the group 2 words on Thursday, Oct. 25.  Remember these are the words that do not follow a pattern, and need to be memorized.  Students will need to not only spell the words correctly, but be able to read them in order to "pass" this group of words.

Science:

 We will continue to work on our first Science unit: Energy Conversions this week.  In the third chapter of this unit the students will investigate the question "Where does the electrical energy for the devices in Ergstown come from?"  The students will explore and investigate energy sources, converting energy from sources, designing a wind turbine, using what they learned to redesign a wind turbine, and creating arguments about converters.  

Red Ribbon Week Information:

Have a great week!