Star Lab was a huge hit! The students worked hard and learned a lot about the constellations and the effect our Earth's rotation has on the seasons. It warms my heart when so many students come into school and tell me about the constellations they spotted in the night sky.
The Science Fair is coming; I encourage you all to participate. If I can be of any help please don't hesitate to contact me. Our current events for February are optional. Students should sign-up for a date of their choice by this Thursday. I will send home a finalized copy of the schedule by the end of the week.
With Valentine's Day right around the corner I will send home a letter detailing our class party and a class list to address Valentine's Day cards. Finally, we will have our class compliment party on Friday. Students are allowed to wear pajamas to school. I will take care of the treats!
Reading Workshop
We will continue to work on our Mystery unit. We are reading a mystery together as a whole class. It is from the Calendar Club Mystery series. The students are so excited and very motivated.
Writing Workshop
Last week we made booklets and began to develop our chapters. We are using what we know about the structure of informational texts and our topics to make smart decisions about the way we are organizing our chapters. This will be a very large writing project that will consist of multiple chapters, paragraphs, and pages. We will work on it bit by bit while looking at model texts to help inspire and motivate us.
Math
This week we will continue to work on division. We are applying what we know about the concept of division and relating it to multiplication. We will also use our multiplication facts to help us solve division problems without the use of counters to help us. Continue to practice those facts at home, they help us solve our division problems with minimal frustration. For the third week in a row everyone scored a 100% on their fact quiz (this has never happened to me before!!!). This week everyone will take x9. Thank you all so much for the work you are doing at home. We are also working on Area this week.
Science
We will begin a new unit in Science this week. We will be learning about the Solar System. This is a natural progression from our Star Lab work over the last three weeks. We will be learning about the planets, the sun, asteroids, meteors, etc. This is a research unit. The students will use computers and print resources to research aspects of each planet. They will also be responsible for completing a project on a planet of their choice at the end of the unit. Most of this work will be done in school!
I am looking forward to another wonderful week of school. I have noticed a real change in your children over the last few weeks. They are growing, learning, and developing some wonderful work habits. Sitting in an assembly last week, another teacher in the building commented on what a change they have seen in your children and she commented on how much more mature they seem. BRAVO!!
Sunday, January 25, 2015
Sunday, January 18, 2015
A Short Week With One More Trip Into StarLab
If you have not yet signed up for a Parent/Teacher Conference and you would like one please click the following link and choose a time that works for you. If you would like a phone call during conference week just to check in, please email me and we can arrange a time.
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0945aaac2aa6ff2-winter
Math
We are working on our first division unit. We have explored the concept of division and how it relates to subtraction and multiplication. This week we will continue this work and use fact families to divide by 2, 3, 4 and 5. We will also have our third fact quiz on Friday. Everyone in the class is on x10 this week!!! Please continue to practice at home. Having a quick fact recall really helps when solving division problems.
The students will bring home their multiplication tests on Tuesday. Overall the scores were excellent. Our class average was a 92%! The most common mistakes were related to the Distributive Property. I will revisit this topic this week! This test is actually two tests combined (unit 5 and unit 6). We took these tests at two different times, weeks apart. Please sign the test, and return it to me by Friday.
We are also working on Area of figures in class. You will see Area homework on Tuesday. It is important for students to label their answers!
Reading
We had a lot of fun in reading last week. We started our Mystery unit! We played memory with some vocabulary terms for the unit and practiced our detective skills in a whole class setting. This week we will break into small groups and read longer mysteries. We will be detectives and identify the elements of the mystery while trying to solve the case! If you child is excited about this genre and you are looking for books to read at home try A-Z mysteries, Encyclopedia Brown, The Calendar Club Mysteries, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Jigsaw Jones Mysteries, Mystic Lighthouse Mysteries, The Boxcar Children, and Cam Jansen.
Writing
Your children worked so hard in writing last week! We continued to draft our informational pieces while exploring different features we could use to make our work more interesting. This week we will look at the rubric that I will use to grade their pieces and make goals for revision.
Science
StarLab has been such a huge hit!! Last week we learned about the "reasons for the seasons". I hope that you got a sense of what we learned in your child's Friday Letter. This week we will focus on The Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and the North Star.
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0945aaac2aa6ff2-winter
Math
We are working on our first division unit. We have explored the concept of division and how it relates to subtraction and multiplication. This week we will continue this work and use fact families to divide by 2, 3, 4 and 5. We will also have our third fact quiz on Friday. Everyone in the class is on x10 this week!!! Please continue to practice at home. Having a quick fact recall really helps when solving division problems.
The students will bring home their multiplication tests on Tuesday. Overall the scores were excellent. Our class average was a 92%! The most common mistakes were related to the Distributive Property. I will revisit this topic this week! This test is actually two tests combined (unit 5 and unit 6). We took these tests at two different times, weeks apart. Please sign the test, and return it to me by Friday.
We are also working on Area of figures in class. You will see Area homework on Tuesday. It is important for students to label their answers!
Reading
We had a lot of fun in reading last week. We started our Mystery unit! We played memory with some vocabulary terms for the unit and practiced our detective skills in a whole class setting. This week we will break into small groups and read longer mysteries. We will be detectives and identify the elements of the mystery while trying to solve the case! If you child is excited about this genre and you are looking for books to read at home try A-Z mysteries, Encyclopedia Brown, The Calendar Club Mysteries, Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, Jigsaw Jones Mysteries, Mystic Lighthouse Mysteries, The Boxcar Children, and Cam Jansen.
Writing
Your children worked so hard in writing last week! We continued to draft our informational pieces while exploring different features we could use to make our work more interesting. This week we will look at the rubric that I will use to grade their pieces and make goals for revision.
Science
StarLab has been such a huge hit!! Last week we learned about the "reasons for the seasons". I hope that you got a sense of what we learned in your child's Friday Letter. This week we will focus on The Big Dipper, Little Dipper, and the North Star.
Here we are using cubes to help us learn about division as equal sharing!
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Conference Sign-Ups and a Weekly Update
Report cards and conferences will take place during the beginning of February. Please click on the following link to sign-up for a conference. If these dates/times don't work for you I would be happy to arrange a time to meet with you.
We are beginning a new unit in reading this week. We will be studying mystery and exploring the elements of this fun genre. We will begin with a strong focus on vocabulary while reading short mysteries as a whole group. The students will also be reading mystery chapter books in small book groups.
Writing
We have done some great work in our informational writing unit. We tried different ways to structure our topics. This week we will continue to explore different ways to organize our topic and ideas. We will plan ways to incorporate many of the wonderful non-fiction text features we learned about in reading.
Math
We have finished our multiplication unit. Although we will be moving on to new topics we will continue to practice facts in class, and I hope that you will continue to practice them at home too. This week we will begin to explore division. We will begin with a very basic and concrete approach to division. We will break numbers into equal groups and talk about sharing. We will also try to solve division problems with repeated subtraction. My focus this week is for every student to grasp the concept behind division before beginning to work on division facts. We will also complete our work with perimeter and move on to area.
We will have another fact quiz this Friday. If your child earned a 100% on the x2 quiz, then he/she will take the x5 this week. If not, he/she will try x2 again this Friday.
Science
We will go in to Star Lab again this week. We will identify the constellations again, but our main focus is learning the reason for the seasons. We will watch the sun rise and set and follow its path during each of the four seasons. Throughout the week we will explore the science behind the seasons and weather changes.
This week I have a full day training on Tuesday to learn the ins and outs of our new interactive whiteboard. This means I will be out of the classroom that day, but still reachable by email. I will also be out on Friday afternoon for a writing training.
Some photos from before the holiday break:
Mr. Seebode was a mystery reader.
Our technology week!
Last week, Mrs. Pachter was our Mystery Reader!
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Happy New Year!
Thank you for the very generous holiday gifts. After a relaxing break with my family I am ready to get back to school and back into our routine. I have a lot planned for this week!
Reading Workshop
We will use this week to finish our nonfiction unit. The students have explored many different types of nonfiction and used the text features to deepen our comprehension. This week we will review the text features and read a variety of nonfiction articles, concentrating on the structure of the text.
Writing Workshop
I have a very full week of writing planned. We will create a table of contents for our nonfiction topics, frame out the subtopics for each chapter and experiment with different types of writing structures. We will also write a Friday Letter this week.
Math
This will be the last week of multiplication instruction. We will have a chapter test on Friday, as well as our first fact quiz. Before the break I sent home an outline of the fact quizzes. We will begin with x2 this week. The quiz will be 20 questions long and the students will have 2 minutes. If they get 100% then they move on to x5 next week. If they don't get a 100% they will take x2 again next week. We will practice our facts in school every day, but it is also important for the students to practice a few minutes each night at home.
This week we will also explore perimeter. We will find the perimeter of regular and irregular shapes and use this concept to solve a variety of word problems.
Science
This week we will go in Star Lab for the first time. We will identify the constellations in the winter night sky. We will be sure to write about this experience in our Friday Letter...stay tuned!
Spelling
The students' new list for unit 11 will come home tomorrow with the quiz on Thursday.
Have a wonderful week and Happy New Year!
Reading Workshop
We will use this week to finish our nonfiction unit. The students have explored many different types of nonfiction and used the text features to deepen our comprehension. This week we will review the text features and read a variety of nonfiction articles, concentrating on the structure of the text.
Writing Workshop
I have a very full week of writing planned. We will create a table of contents for our nonfiction topics, frame out the subtopics for each chapter and experiment with different types of writing structures. We will also write a Friday Letter this week.
Math
This will be the last week of multiplication instruction. We will have a chapter test on Friday, as well as our first fact quiz. Before the break I sent home an outline of the fact quizzes. We will begin with x2 this week. The quiz will be 20 questions long and the students will have 2 minutes. If they get 100% then they move on to x5 next week. If they don't get a 100% they will take x2 again next week. We will practice our facts in school every day, but it is also important for the students to practice a few minutes each night at home.
This week we will also explore perimeter. We will find the perimeter of regular and irregular shapes and use this concept to solve a variety of word problems.
Science
This week we will go in Star Lab for the first time. We will identify the constellations in the winter night sky. We will be sure to write about this experience in our Friday Letter...stay tuned!
Spelling
The students' new list for unit 11 will come home tomorrow with the quiz on Thursday.
Have a wonderful week and Happy New Year!
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