It's crazy to think about how quickly the summer flew by, but we are back to school and ready to get back into a groove! Thank you to all who were able to make time to meet me at Parent Information Night last week. I am truly enjoying getting to know your kids! This is a GREAT bunch!
Here are some of the things we will be working on this week in class:
Reading - We will be reading a tall tale titled "Thunder Rose" and focusing on the skill of identifying cause and effect relationships. We will also work on the comprehension strategy of summarizing, as well as using graphic aides such as charts and graphs to better our understanding.
Math - This week we will work on divisibility rules, identifying prime and composite numbers, squaring and unsquaring numbers, as well as prime factorization. Our test date for this unit will be on Tuesday, August 18th. Please be looking for a Test Alert to come home by the end of the week so students can begin preparing!
Writing - Students will complete one more autobiography type of writing, along with taking their own "selfie" to assist them! These should be fun! Another focus in writing this week will be responding to a piece of literature. We will be reviewing a strategy that most of the students know as A.P.E. to respond to a question about a text. This strategy will also assist them during Reading each week hereafter.
Science - We will be starting our work in Chapter 1 of the Life Sciences. This chapter's focus is on classifying plants and animals. Last week, students completed an investigation using keys to identify various trees and fish. This week, we will be reading and discussing material from our books as well as taking lots of notes!
Social Studies - Again, we will begin working through Chapter 1 of our new Social Studies curriculum. The focus of the chapter is on ancient civilizations, how the environment effected their lives, such as their housing, how they found food, etc. We will continue with this for a couple of weeks and end with a group project. That information will come home at a later date.
Students are receiving letters of "employment notification" on Monday morning! It is always so exciting to watch them open and read to find out for which job they have been hired. Be sure to ask them about it when you have a chance. Obviously, I am not able to always place students in their first choice of job, but I make sure to discuss how each job is important to the smooth running of our "company." I am doubtful that there will be much disappointment as there is a thrill in "getting a job" anyway, but please reinforce how important it is that we all do our jobs well no matter how big or how small; when we are all working together, our classroom will run like a well-oiled machine.
I am so thrilled with the start to this year that we have had! I am truly looking forward to an amazing year with this group of kiddos! Have a great week!
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