Hello families! I enjoyed having the opportunity to talk with most of you during parent-teacher conferences. Thank you for taking the time to meet with me.
Here are some highlights from the past couple of months.
MATH
Since the beginning of the year we have worked on multiplication, multiplication, and a little more multiplication! For the past couple of weeks, we've been focusing on how multiplication and division are related (but opposite) operations. Using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to solve problems is woven into many lessons.
Thank you so much for having your child complete homework each week. Memorizing math facts is one of the best ways to increase your child's fluency in mathematics.
Our next unit will be on finding area. We will use a variety of strategies, but there will be much emphasis on the connection between area and multiplication.
Thank you for having your child read each night at home. At least 20 minutes each night is a good goal.
We spent time focusing on what readers think about as they read. They wonder about what will happen and why characters behave as they do. They ask questions and then read to find the answers to those questions. Readers make inferences using clues from the text.
We spent a week reading fictional and informational books about bats. We focused on the difference between fiction and nonfiction and also practiced finding details that support specific main ideas.
Currently we are reading many books that portray strong characters. We are reviewing character traits, character motivation, and how characters can change over time.
WRITING
We have completed two short writing projects. Students wrote a descriptive fall paragraph using their five senses to describe. In addition, students wrote a 2-paragraph persuasive letter. The idea was to write from the point of view of a pumpkin. They decided whether or not they wanted to be chosen as a jack o'lantern, then wrote to persuade the farmer to pick them (or not). Through these projects students worked on composing grammatically correct sentences, elaborating using specific details, organizing writing into paragraphs, starting sentences in various ways, and editing for capitals and punctuation.
Currently we are working on personal narratives. Each student brainstormed a variety of "small moments" that could be turned into stories. Then, each student chose a small moment and planned how to add details to turn that moment into a full story. We've been examining wonderful examples by various authors. We study the techniques these authors used so we can learn to use the same techniques in our own writing. Below are images of some of the books we'll be using. Click on each picture to see a video read aloud.
During science, we've been learning about weather. Students learned the different types of clouds and we even made clouds in jars. Students also learned about different climates and severe weather. We'll be wrapping up this unit shortly. Next we'll start a social studies unit about Native Americans in Connecticut.