MOVING ON MONDAY!

I do hope that everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving holiday!  We all have so much to be thankful for! Hats off to all the moms that supplied, cut, and served the delicious pies  last Friday. I myself always love dessert first. So, that event was the appropriate kick-off to a "feast" of a week!

First, I would like to share your child's responsibilities for tonight.
Spelling...abc order on the sheet provided
Math...study two sets of practice questions for the test tomorrow...they also have the Orthogonal challenge and the Turkey graph challenge that are due by Friday
Reading Comprehension..Kids in the Gold Fields.. due Friday

Please have your child make some multiplication flash cards for them to practice with at home. Some of the children came to school with their cards. I intended for these cards to stay at home. Each child also needs two packs of 3by3 post-it notes by Wednesday. I also encouraged the children to assess their sharpened pencil supply.

Once we have successfully completed the Math test on Unit 3, we will move onto Unit 4. This unit covers key concepts such as: multiples of equal groups, multiplication arrays and word problems, division ties to multiplication, multiplication and division fact families, and estimating distances with a map scale. Thus, it is very important that the children begin studying the multiplication chart and that I sent home prior to Thanksgiving and using their flash cards.

In Reading we will complete our class novel, 7*9=Trouble. While reading the last half of the book, the children will work more closely with a reading buddy. The two partners will gauge their own reading and responses with the help of mini lessons. I will be working on a list of high frequency words as well. Each child will read from the list. Those children that need additional practice, I will send home the list for the children to practice. I hope to complete this task within the next couple of weeks. We will continue with our character study and sequencing of events.

This week we have traveled to the northern part of Florida near was is today Jacksonville and St. Augustine. We are reading and learning about the Timucua Native American Group. You will want to ask your child about succotash and the nutritional value of the vegetables when you put them all together in a bowl. By the end of the week, we will travel to the Tampa Bay area and across the state where the Tocabaga Native American Group settled. Once we have collected as much factual information that we can, we will spend some time comparing and contrasting these groups.

In Science, we will work on  a Comic Life Project using the computer and pictures that the children took while studying Simple Machines with Lego Robotics.  This culminating activity will illustrate what your child has learned and the pictures that they have taken to document their learning.

Spelling this week are words that end with the sound of /j/ but spelled either ge or dge. The words are as follows: bridge, fudge, hinge, dodge, hedge, fringe, partridge lodge, wage, cringe, budge, pledge, ledge, gorge, knowledge, binge, huge, smudge, and plunge. These are excellent words to not only know how to read, but to use in their writing as well.

We will begin our Wordly Wise Lesson 6. The words include: chasm, continent credit, enable, foul, gust, ordeal, plateau, rig, schedule.

We will continue practicing our cursive capital letters. You can expect the handwriting workbook to come hom again this week to practice. I had hoped that by the time we return from the Winter Break, that they children would be prepared to at least begin writing the spelling tests in cursive.

This week we will wrap up our poetry unit by investigating Free Verse. The children have been busy publishing, Cinquain, Diamante, Factual Acrostic, and Haiku forms of Poetry. Our last form of Poetry that we will work on is Free Verse. This type of Poetry can be intimidating but it can be the easiest. It is a continual free flowing thought process about any thought or feeling. The fun part is that there are not rules, unlike the other forms of Poetry that we have learned. It will be interesting to see that kinds of topics and feelings that the children choose to write about.

I hope to have another set of papers ready to come home on Friday. I know that report cards should be posted on-line by tomorrow. Please let me know if you feel the need to conference again. However, I would like you to focus on the importance of good work and study habits. Much of how the children are expected to learn and share that information stems from the ability to stay focused and work together with a buddy or small group, as well as listen attentively in mini lessons that will help them in their buddy or group work. I am expecting  that every child will do their best to produce quality work whether it is homework or classwork.

Thank you again for support and for taking the time to read all the correspondence coming home via blogs or emails.