A few items...

     Next week is a short week with our holiday celebration on Wednesday. The students would like to wear pajamas to school on Wednesday! Please keep in mind they will wear the pajamas out to recess, so they need to be appropriate for the weather. Wednesday is also Crazy Sock Day!

I wish you all the very best over the holiday break. Hopefully you have time to relax and enjoy time with your families!

A few photos from the past week...

Thank you to our Mystery Reader, Mr. Dievendorf!

Week of December 14th

This is our last full week of school in 2015!!

Reader's Workshop
      We will learn about the last nonfiction text structure this week, and continue to read nonfiction articles. When we return to school in January we will study Mystery as a genre.

Writer's Workshop
      As we begin our informational writing work we will be using what we know about text features and structures to make our writing stronger. This week we will develop a table of contents and an overview of what each chapter will contain.

Math
    Students should be practicing their multiplication facts at home each night. This week we will use what we know about multiplication to solve word problems. We will also practice facts in class by playing games. When we return to school in January we will begin Division!!!

Science
     We are making books about the constellation and studying the temperature of the stars in relation to their color. We will be going into Star Lab in January.

Word Work
     We will continue to investigate prefixes, suffixes and root words. We will also work on contractions.

Thank you to our Mystery Reader Mr. Kapczynski! 

Welcome December!

It is hard to believe that we are already a week into December! I am always amazed how fast the school year flies by.

Reader's Workshop
     We are still working on our nonfiction unit. We are examining different nonfiction text structures, and reading lots and lots of examples. This week we will learn about texts organized using cause and effect. We are also spending time in class reading independent chapter books and writing about our reading in weekly book letters.

Writer's Workshop
     We finished our personal narrative unit last week. This week we will begin an informational writing unit. This will compliment our nonfiction reading unit. Students will be asked to choose a topic they are experts on and write an informational piece.

Math
    Multiplication is going very well. We have learned x0, 1, 2, 3, 5, 9, and 10. This week we will learn x4, 6, 7, and 8. We will also learn how to multiply with three numbers. At the end of the week I will have introduced all of the facts. We will start working on using them in word problems, and more complex math assignments. It would be very helpful if students practiced their facts at home each night to help them become more automatic.

Science
    Hopefully your child came home this week excited about our new Science unit. We are learning about constellations in preparation for our visit to Star Lab in January. We are learning about the myths associated with the constellations, names of special stars, and star temperatures and color.

Word Work
   Last week we worked on homophones and the students' work was very impressive. This week we will work on prefixes, suffixes and root words.

Thank you to our mystery reader, Mr. Doherty!

American Education Week

Good afternoon! I am looking forward to visiting with you tomorrow night from 6-7 pm in my classroom. The format for this event is an open house, so please come and go as needed. This time is for your child to show you around the classroom, show notebooks, and work. In addition, I will have a Thanksgiving day craft for the students to make (and extras for siblings) and a mummy making website for you to play with. 

Reader's Workshop

     We started our nonfiction unit this week. We learned about the text features of a nonfiction piece, and how reading these can enhance our knowledge of the text. We will also be reading a variety of nonfiction articles and write in response to our reading.

Math

    Multiplication is in full swing! We have learned strategies for solving x2, x5, x9, x0, and x1. Please begin practicing facts at home. There are many wonderful websites, and apps available to help. Also, I have found flashcards are also helpful when learning facts. This week we will also learn x10, patterns in multiplication tables, and multiples of 10. 

Social Studies

     We are learning about the ancient Egyptian civilization. This is a very motivating unit and lends itself nicely to our nonfiction reading unit. We are reading a nonfiction Magic Treehouse book called Mummies and Pyramids. During this unit have also done a lot of writing in response to our reading.

Writing

      We have finished our first draft of our personal narrative. We will work on revising our work by finding the heart of the story and slowing down the action. 

Word Work
      We are learning about possessive nouns. We have learned the rules for singular and plural possessive nouns. We will also work on identifying the difference between a plural noun and a possessive noun. 

Thank you to our mystery reader, Jack (Griffin's brother)!

Some photos of our possessive noun scavenger hunt.

Week of November 9th

   It certainly was a very busy week last week, and it looks as if it will be equally busy this week! We have the Grand Lunch Event tomorrow from 12:00-12:50. This is an opportunity for family members to eat lunch with their student and then visit the Book Fair during recess. We also have our Veteran's Assembly on Tuesday at 2:30 (please wear red, white and blue), and we have Wednesday off in honor of Veteran's Day.

Reading Workshop
    Your children are blowing me away with their insightful contributions during the end of our Character unit!!! I can't wait for you to see our final project and the depth of your child's thinking. Hopefully, we will finish this at the beginning of the week. Next up is a nonfiction unit. We will begin looking at the text features of a variety of nonfiction texts. Then we will learn how to do a close read of a text and how to make notes on text.

Writer's Workshop
    We are still working on our personal narratives. We are also writing in all subject areas. The students continue to work on writing cohesive paragraphs.

Social Studies
    We started our Ancient Egypt unit. So far we have studied the geography of the country and the importance the Nile River played on the development of this civilization. This week our focus will be on learning vocabulary. We will be reading a nonfiction book about Ancient Egypt together during the course of this unit.

Math
   Our class is rocking multiplication! We started with repeated addition, making arrays, and learning about the commutative property. This week we will write multiplication stories and use arrays to solve basic multiplication word problems. We will have a short test on these concepts this Thursday so I can assess the students understanding before moving onto learning facts. We will begin learning x2 and x5!

Science
   Our Plant Growth and Development unit is almost finished. We pollinated our plants and we are observing the development of seed pods. Be on the lookout for all of our work to come home this week!

The students pollinating our Fast Plants.

Our Halloween party! Thanks to Mrs. Godlewski for helping!

Thank you to our most recent Mystery Reader, Mrs. Mazeau!

My boys, Cole (viking) and Grant (doctor) on Halloween.

Halloween

     This week is the last day of parent/teacher conferences, we have an assembly, and we will have a Halloween party on Friday.
      After careful consideration and assessment of my students' spelling I have decided to begin a spelling program. This Friday your child will come home with 5 spelling words on a sheet with their definitions. The sheet has space to practice writing the words in sentences. This is NOT homework! It is simply a practice sheet if you wish to use it. The students will be quizzed on the 5 words next Thursday, November 5th. They will need to spell the word correctly and use it correctly in a sentence. Then, Friday, November 6th your child will come home with 5 new words (they will repeat any words they spell incorrectly). Thank you so much in advance for your help! If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to email me.

Reader's Workshop
     We will conclude our Character unit by exploring the types of conflict our characters face in fiction texts, and how that conflict changes our characters. We will also work on this in our book groups as we finish our first chapter books together.

Writing Workshop
     This week we will choose a final writing topic for our first published personal narratives. We will work on crafting interesting leads and using our storyteller's voice while drafting. We will also continue to work on writing paragraphs.

Math
      This week will be all about subtraction! We will review how to subtract with regrouping by using place value blocks and then moving to pencil and paper. We will also work on subtraction across zeros. Thursday we will dedicate to problem solving, and we will take a chapter test on Friday.

Science
     Our plants are developing nicely! We have been tracking their progress every day by making observations and taking measurements. This week we will learn about the importance of bees in pollination and a plant's life cycle. We will pollinate our plants using real bees! Finally, we will identify the parts of a flower and how they function in the pollination process.

Word Work
     We will continue to learn how to use the dictionary this week. It is such a useful tool, and the class has really impressed me with their ability to use the guide words to find an entry word. We will also work with adjectives.

Thank you to our Mystery Reader Mrs. Godlewski!

Week of October 19th

    This week we will have our second day of parent/teacher conferences on Thursday. We have about 20 minutes available to us for this conference, but please don't think this is our only opportunity to discuss your child. I am always more than willing to meet with you, or exchange emails if you have any concerns or just want to check-in!

Reader's Workshop

     We are in the midst of our character unit. We are reading The Tale of Despereaux and analyzing our main characters' actions, dialog, feelings, and thoughts. The students are using textual evidence to help support their thinking. We are also meeting in small book groups, and working on identifying character traits with textual evidence. 

Writer's Workshop

    We have learned how to write a paragraph, and we will continue to practice this skill this week. I hope you saw a difference in our Friday Letters this weekend. We worked very hard to write two well planned and organized paragraphs. 

     We will also continue to work on our personal narrative unit. The students will bring home their writer's notebooks Monday night to write an entry for homework. 

Science

    We are making observations about our plants. This week we will learn the difference between seed leaves and true leaves, and how to identify them on our plants. We will also chart our plant's growth spurt. 

Math

     We have completed the second unit and we took a chapter test on Friday. This test will come home on Monday night for the students to correct and return by Friday. Overall, I was very impressed with the scores on this test! 

     This week we will work on addition with regrouping. This is a review concept from second grade. We will spend the first few days of the week using place value blocks for the students to understand the concept behind regrouping. Then, we will move to pencil and paper practice. By the end of the week we will progress to word problems. 

Have a wonderful week!

A few photos from the last two weeks...

We planted our Wisconsin Fast Plants.

We welcomed Mrs. Dievendorf as our Mystery Reader.

We enjoyed a presentation from the Elsmere Fire Department.

Mrs. Kowalsky was our Mystery Reader last week.