A Few Reminders...

Star Lab Parent Night is Wednesday, January 22nd from 6 - 7pm.Please send in the RSVP by Tuesday, January 14 whether you plan on attending or not. This will give us time to organize the event to make it run as smooth as possible based on the number attending.

Parent/Teacher Conferences: Last week I sent an email with a link for an online sign up for parent/teacher conferences. These conferences are optional, however, I believe it is important to touch base. With only 2 afternoons at my disposal I have set up 15 minute blocks of time to be able to accommodate everyone. I understand it is difficult to take time off from work to come in for only 15 minutes, so I am willing to conduct phone conferences at the time you sign up. Please visit the link below to sign up for a time and then shoot me a separate email requesting that I call you at that time, including the best number to reach you at. I look forward to meeting with all of you!

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0945AAAC2AA6FF2-february

Math:
Math Facts 
We have been working tremendously hard on memorizing our multiplication facts here in school as well as now moving on to understanding division concepts. It is extremely important that math fact practice is worked into your daily homework routine. We continue to have math fact quizzes every Friday. This week many have moved on to the 6's, however, I still have people working on the 9's, 3's, and 4's. On each fact quiz that is taken on Friday I make a note as to which facts your child should be working on.

Problem Solving
Your child now has 4 different operations to choose from when solving word problems: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. We have been discussing at length the difference between these operations and what these operations are actually asking us to do.
1. addition: putting together groups of different sizes
2. subtraction: taking away from the total number
3. multiplication: putting together equal groups
4. division: taking the total number of items and separating them into equal groups

Last week your child brought home word problems to solve. The format of those word problem sheets are meant for your child to think through what the question is asking them to do, show their work, put their answer in a sentence, and then explain their thinking.

For example:

Problem: Naomi has 45 red beads and 69 purple beads. She loses 16 beads while making a bracelet. How many beads does Naomi have left?

What do you know?

• Underline that in the problem.

What do you need to find out?

• Circle that in the problem.

Solve. Show your work (picture/model/diagram/equation).

45 + 69 = 114
114 - 16 = 98 beads

Answer Sentence: (Tell me in a sentence what your answer is)
Naomi has 98 beads left.

Look back and check. Explain why your answer makes sense. (Tell me why you knew which operation to use).
I needed to find how many beads Naomi had to start with since she had 45 red and 69 purple. Once I found that, I knew she lost 16 so I had to subtract that from the total number of beads she started with.  

This week your child will be continuing to focus on choosing an appropriate equation to figure out word problems. 
 

Star Lab Fun

Our class had a fantastic time in Star Lab last Friday. We found many constellations in the winter night sky, identified our own constellations and learned how to describe their position in the sky using the appropriate directions. Our class was very respectful during our time in Star Lab and I was impressed by their maturity. We can't wait to visit again this Friday! If you haven't already sent in your RSVP for the Star Lab night on Wednesday, January 22nd, please send it back by Tuesday. I hope that you are all able to attend.

This week we have lots on our schedule:

Reader's Workshop:

     We will continue our Mystery unit. We read a Calendar Club Mystery together and identified the basic structure of a mystery. We discussed the main detectives, the mystery, clues, hunches, and even a red herring. This week we will begin book groups and begin a new Calendar Club Mystery.

Writer's Workshop:
     We began our informational writing work last week. We created a table of contents and began drafting. This week we will explore alternative ways to organize our work.

Math:
     We will continue our work on division this week. Our focus at the beginning of the week will be on problem solving. We will take a division test on Thursday. Please continue to practice multiplication facts at home.

Science:
     Our focus will be on our next Star Lab lesson. We will learn about the rotation and revolution of the sun. We will learn about how the tilt of the Earth's axis impacts the seasons. On Friday we will make our second trip into Star Lab to witness the difference in the path of the sun during each season.

   The Science Fair is just around the corner! I strongly encourage every student to participate. If I can help in anyway please feel free to contact me.

Happy New Year

Welcome to the start of a brand new year! We have so many fantastic adventures to come this school year. I am looking forward to seeing all of the students tomorrow morning. It has been a great two weeks for my family and I can't wait to hear about all of the exciting things the students have been doing.

This week will be packed with learning!

Reader's Workshop
     We will begin a new unit this week. We will be learning about Mysteries. This is a fun unit to teach and the students enjoy trying to solve the mysteries before the detectives. Our unit will focus on the structure of a mystery and the clues the author gives to help you solve the mystery or to throw you off the trail.

Writer's Workshop
     Our new writing unit is Informational Writing. The students will be asked to choose a topic that they are very familiar with to write about during this unit. This would make a great dinner conversation on Monday night! We will be generating a few possible ways to organize our work this week.

Math
      Division!!! We have complete our multiplication units. We will continue to practice our facts in school. Please continue to practice them at home as often as possible. We will begin division by relating it to subtraction and the relationship to multiplication. This is were the students will really benefit from knowing their multiplication facts.

Social Studies
     We are learning about Brazil this month. We will focus on comparing Brazil's culture to everything we have learned about the USA. This week we will learn how the needs/wants of various Brazilian people compare to our country's needs/wants. We will also learn about the Brazilian flag and what it symbolizes.

Science
     We have learned the myths surrounding some of the winter night sky's constellations. This week we will have the opportunity to find them in Star Lab. This is the district's portable planetarium that Elsmere uses during the month of January. We will use Star Lab three times this month in class. We will also host an event for you to come into school one evening this month to experience Star Lab for yourself. More details coming home about this event this week!

Tomorrow the students will bring home their spelling list for the week and a new reading calendar for the month of January. They will also bring home our final multiplication test to be signed and corrected by Friday.