December 4

Wow! Only two weeks left before we are on Winter Break! Now if only we would get some snow…

This week in Reading Workshop we finished reading The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo. As we finished the students looked for motifs (recurring themes) in the story. We also learned to look at the endings of books in such a way that we are able to learn something from the story and take a lesson from the story with us. Next week we will begin working on understanding Non-Fiction texts.

In Writer’s Workshop this week students chose their thesis and then developed three reason statements that support their opinion (thesis). Students than began coming up with ideas for personal narrative stories that they could use to support their reason statements. Then, they began to craft their stories.

This week in Math we continued to learn and practice the “Old School” or “digit by digit” method for long division. This is the method that you and I learned way back when! Please help your child with this method if you notice they are struggling on homework or if the have made errors on papers we have completed and graded in class. Our Practice long division test will be next week Friday.

In Science we started a new unit “Organisms in Their Environment.” We began by observing three different aquatic organisms: African Dwarf Frogs, Freshwater Snails and Guppies. We were particularly interested in the physical characteristics that they have that help them to survive in their environment. For example the frogs strong hind legs help it to evade predators and catch prey.

Today we had the opportunity to go visit Miss Burdis’s Kindergarten class and help her students write letters to the North Pole! I am so proud of the great job that my class did helping them and reading stories to them.

Here are a few photos from our week:

Important Dates:

Friday, December 4 – Report cards go home

Thursday, December 10 – Build A Gift

Saturday, December 19 through Sunday, January 3 – Winter break