April 27, 2014

It was a busy week after vacation. For Earth Day, we had special visitors from Five Rivers who played a game with the class and taught them about equilibrium in our ecosystem. In math, the class is enjoying the unit on geography and had fun making polygons on geo-boards (see below). We also worked on continent maps by drawing a ripping out the continents and the class really like this activity! This week is the NYS Math test-Wednesday, Thursday and Friday mornings from 9:30-about 11. Please try not to schedule any appointments at this time and make sure your child is on time for school. Thanks and have a great week!

FYI-The kids are running low on pencils, glue sticks and loose leaf paper. If  you have any at home that you could send in, that would be great!

 This week...

Reading
April reading calendars are due Thursday. Students should be reading 30 minutes each night. In class, we are going to start some mystery book groups.

Writing
We are continuing the persuasive writing unit. The class is coming up with some great speeches! Some parents may even be getting some persuasive speeches coming home...they have lots of reasons for getting dogs and hamsters:) There will be no writing homework this week due to testing.

Math
We will continue the geometry unit. Students will be taking the NYS Math test on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. There will be no math homework this week due to testing.

Science/Social Studies

In science, we will continue the solar system unit. In social studies, we will work on a unit on Brazil.

April 20, 2014

We had a great week before vacation! Riley was Student of the Week and she invited her brothers to join us for snack! It was so nice to have them visit. The kids had a lot of fun with a group activity called "The Triangle Problem". They had to work together to create as many shapes as possible from 4 triangles. Check out some pictures below!

This week...

Reading
Students will continue to read independently, a book of their choice. Students should be reading 30 minutes each night.  In class, we will start a unit on mysteries.

Writing
We will continue the persuasive writing unit. The class has a lot of fun writing speeches to convince me to add a little more outside time now that the weather is nicer. They had some very persuasive reasons!

Math
We will be continuing a unit on geometry and we will be preparing for next week's NYS Math Test. It will be April 30th-May 2nd. Please try not to schedule any appointments during that time.

Science/Social Studies
In Science, we will continue the solar system unit. In social studies, we will start a Brazil unit.

April 7, 2014

Last week, the kids worked really hard on the ELA tests and we even got to celebrate with an extra recess on Thursday and Friday. Woo-hoo for some sunshine! It's hard to believe we have one more week until April vacation. Have a wonderful vacation week!!

**FYI Raffle basket donations are due this Wednesday, April 9th! Our theme is "Local Favorites".

This week...

Reading
Students will continue reading independent reading books.  We will also read some fairy tales to go along with our read aloud-The Land of Stories. The class is really enjoying the read aloud! They are on the edge of their seats!

Writing
This week, we will get into our persuasive writing unit. We will start by writing a persuasive letter on the same topic. It will be something school related. Students will try to really persuade me to agree to something like an extra recess or a lunch in the classroom. I can't wait to see what they come up with!

Math
Now that the ELA tests are done, we will start focusing on the upcoming NYS Math test. My goal over the next couple of weeks is to make sure all of the topics for the test have been covered. We will be working on data collection/graphing and area/perimeter this week.

Science/Social Studies
We will be working on the solar system unit in science. Students are researching the planets and will then complete a short project on each planet. In social studies, we are studying culture.