Mother's Day Tea!

Save the date! On Friday, May 6th, we will have our Mother's Day Tea in the MPR from 8:15-9:15 a.m. More details to come soon! :)

Week 33

Happy Sunday! I was out sick earlier this week and then went out of town for a wedding. I have missed your children so much! Looking forward to this upcoming week. Here's what we have coming up:

Literature: In Literature, we are continuing on in Little House in the Big Woods. :)

Spalding: 30 words this week. Test on Friday!

Monday: nearly, to, too, two, animal, basin, breeze, button, cabbage, careful
Tuesday: cough, cousin, dollars, excuse, excuse, island, grief, guard, guilty, hungry
Wednesday: language, laughter, laugh, lining, line, ocean, nephew, nineteen, noticed, notice

Grammar/Writing: more paragraph writing - We will write a descriptive paragraph, describing the story of Grandpa and the pig (from Little House).

Math: This week begins a new unit - capacity! We will compare different containers and develop an understanding of the standard units of capacity - liters, cups, pints, quarts, and gallons!

History: We are wrapping up our Civil War unit this week. We will be learning a little more about the "angel of the battlefield," Clara Barton. Then we will review a bit and test on Friday. A study guide will go home on Monday to help!

Science: This week we will explore what we've learned about simple machines by building them and finding them in our daily lives.

Touch Pebbles: The Man Who Thought He Could Do Anything - In this discussion, students will examine the benefits of working together in a group.

Idiom: "Cold Feet" - loss of nerve or confidence

Poem: Harriet Tubman (Eloise Greenfield)

Miscellaneous: This Friday is French and Fine Arts Night! Come look at some beautiful drawings and hear some French songs!

Week 32

Good evening,

I hope everyone had a good weekend! Just a reminder that there is a half day this Friday! I will be taking that day off for a friend's wedding, but I will respond back to your emails by the following Monday. This Thursday is healthy snack day; please send in a healthy fruit or vegetable!

Literature: Little House in the Big Woods and lapbook :) We're comparing and contrasting our homes with Laura's and describing Christmas at the Ingalls' home. We still need help with reading groups! If you would like to read with us, please sign up here!

For our classic book report, your child is selecting a book to read. Please let me know once it is chosen so that I can approve it and write the title down.

Spalding: We have 29 words this week. Test on Friday!

Monday: support, does, goes, Tuesday, regard, escape, since, which, witch (you may notice that a couple of words are familiar)
Tuesday: length, long, strength, strong, destroy, newspaper, daughter, naughty, caught, taught
Wednesday: answer, reply, sail, sale, cities, city, known, know, several, desire

Grammar: Pre-writing skills - We will be creating a pre-writing map for making bullets (from Little House in the Big Woods). We will take this map to create a rough draft, edit in class, and then write a final draft.

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation from "A Child's Geography of the World"

Math: We are reviewing time this week. Each day will focus on a different component: after the hour, before the hour, time intervals, and elapsed time. We will test on Friday!

History: Civil War continued - Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and how the war ends

Science: Simple machines continued - pulley and wheel & axle

Poem: Harriet Tubman by Eloise Greenfield - This is split into five stanzas. Practice one stanza each week. This is our last poem for the year!

Goodnight. See you in the morning!

Week 31

Good morning!

We have loved seeing the brown bag autobiography book reports! We still have several presentations to go, and we look forward to hearing the rest of them! For the next book, your child will get to select a classic to read. More instructions will be going home tomorrow!

This week is going to be a busy one. We have the Spring Concert on Wednesday at 5:30! Come listen to your children sing some beautiful music. :)

Here's what we will be learning in class this week:

Literature: We are continuing on with Little House in the Big Woods and our lap books!

Spalding: 30 words this week - make sure we're writing 2 sentences with spelling words each night! These directions are on the homework. :) Test on Friday!

Monday: importance, important, carried, carry, loss, fortune, empire, mayor, wait, degree
Tuesday: prison, engine, visit, guest, guessed, guess, department, obtain, family, favor
Wednesday: Mrs. = Mistress, Mr. = Mister, Miss, husband, amount, human, view, clerk, though, o'lock - o(f the) clock

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises

Grammar: We're finishing dictionary skills and then working on pre-writing skills!

Touch Pebbles: text selection - About Lying

Math: We are finishing up our unit on time this week. It was a quick one - please continue to practice telling time at home! (Reminder: The word "minutes" is a longer word and has more letters in it - the minute hand is the longer looking hand!)

Please help us with math groups! You can sign up here!

History: Civil War - By the end of the week, students will be able to recognize Abraham Lincoln, the importance of the Emancipation Act, and list reasons why the South wanted to secede from the Union.

Science: We are learning more about Simple Machines, focusing mostly on the wedge and screw this week!

Idiom: "Get a taste of your own medicine!"

Poem: Poetry recitations this week!! (Lincoln by Turner)

Have a wonderful rest of your weekend!

Week 30

Welcome back!! I hope you all had a GREAT Spring Break! It's hard to believe but we only have NINE weeks of school left! :) Here is what we have coming up:

Literature: We will begin our last book of the year: Little House in the Big Woods. Please bring it to school this week if you have not done so yet. We won't do reading groups this week, but we will read chapters 1 and 2 in class! We have a lap book that we will make as we work our way through the book, and it's going to look really nice!

Spalding: We have 19 words this week and will test on Friday. 

Tues: awful, awesome, awe, usually, usual, complaint, complained, complain, auto, vacation

Wed: beautiful, beauty, flight, travel, rapid, repair, troubling, trouble, entrance

Grammar: Dictionary skills - how to use dictionaries, alphabetizing words, and using guide words

Writing: narration, copy work, and dictation exercises from The Story of Mankind by Helene Guerber

Math: Telling Time! (minutes after and before the hour, to the quarter hour, and to the half hour) We will have a short math quiz on Friday!

History: In History, we are starting our unit on the Civil War. This week, we will be discussing what led up to the Civil War - how the north and south were divided over certain issues - as well as learning about some important people. We will talk about Harriet Beecher Stowe and Harriet Tubman and why we remember them today. 

Science: We are starting a new unit on Simple Machines! 

Idiom: "Get a taste of your own medicine"

Poem: Lincoln by Nancy Byrd Turner - practice stanza 4 (We will recite next week!)

Miscellaneous: Book reports are due this week! Please turn them in by Friday. :)

Week 29

Good evening! We have a different kind of week coming up, as it is short and jam-packed with activities! Here's what's happening:

Literature: We finished Sarah, Plain and Tall but still have reading groups scheduled for Tuesday, so we will use leveled readers in groups and also work on our Idioms and Proverbs packet. When we get back from break, we will dive right into Little House in the Big Woods.

Spalding: We will be practicing our cursive and reworking words that were commonly missed on the last several spelling tests. There will be no spelling test this week; it will simply be review. The homework will be to write ten sentences in cursive and this will be due on Thursday.

Writing: narration and copy work exercises from The Real Princess by Hans Christian Andersen

Grammar: We are working on paragraphs this week and will learn the rules for writing a paragraph, as well as the steps of the writing process.

Math: Our objectives this week are to write fractions whose sum makes a whole and write fractions of a set. On Thursday, we will play fraction scoot to review, and then there will be a cumulative assessment!

History: We will be reviewing our Westward Expansion material in class tomorrow (Monday) and will test on Thursday! We will also learn more about settling the west on our field trip this week!

Science: We will take a short Magnet Quiz on Tuesday after a little more review. On Thursday we have a really fun activity planned, but I'm going to leave it as a surprise! :)

Idiom: "You can't teach an old dog new tricks!"

Poem: Lincoln (stanza 3 this week!)

Note: Thursday is a half day, and there is no school on Friday!

FIELD TRIP
Our field trip is this Wednesday and will be an all day event. We will get back in time for early release. :) Please don't bring backpacks to school on Wednesday. Simply pack a sack lunch and water bottle. Students must be in school uniform. Even though we are not at school, we are representing Archway Arete and should dress accordingly. Students may bring hats since a lot of the field trip will take place outside. We also encourage all students to wear sunscreen since it will be warm and sunny! We are so excited and looking forward to this trip!!

Week 28

Good morning! I hope everyone is having a relaxing weekend. I know I have! I spent yesterday shopping, baking, and grilling with my family. :) Hard to believe that quarter 3 is almost to an end. Here's what we have coming up this week:

Literature: Chapters 7-9 of Sarah, Plain and Tall - Thank you to our reading group helpers! We love having you in the classroom on Tuesdays and Thursdays!
Vocabulary words we will encounter:
chapter 7: whickering, primly, squak
chapter 8: overalls, weary, squall, pungent, eerie
chapter 9: scuttling, wailing

Spalding: We have 29 words this week. Just like last week, we will do 1 or 2 words in cursive each day. Your child can choose to write 1-2 words on the homework in cursive, but this is not mandatory. We are just practicing and getting used to reading and writing it. The Spelling Test will be on Friday after Field Day. Words:
Monday: knee, lemon, lying, lie, nails, needle, nobody, oar, palace, penny
Tuesday: regular, repeats, sailor, sentence, shining, shine, surface, sweeping, sweeps, thief
Wednesday: waist, waste, waiting, weary, writing, writer, write, spend, enjoy

Grammar/Writing: We are learning about transition words this week and how they are necessary for forming a good paragraph. We will be discussing the six traits of writing and will work on a pre-writing map before delving into our individual paragraphs.

Math: We are continuing fractions. On Friday, I introduced the words "numerator" and "denominator". We talked about how numerator sounds like number and this represents the number that are shaded. Denominator sounds like divide, and this represents how many pieces it is (equally) divided into. We will continue to recognize fractions and begin to compare them. Which one is bigger? How many 1/4 pieces fit into 1/2? We will take our first chapter test on fractions (recognizing halves and quarters) on Wednesday!

History: We are nearing the end of our Westward Expansion unit, just in time for our Field Trip next week! This week we will discuss the Native Americans and some of their leaders, like Sequoyah, and how they were impacted by the pioneers moving west.

Science: We are exploring how magnets repel and attract and learning the law of magnetic attraction: "Unlike poles attract; like poles repel". We will also look at compasses and how the magnet in them always points north.

Miscellaneous: Field Day is on Friday from 8:30-11:00 am! Our class is Macedonia and our symbol is the sun. I am waiting to hear more details on dress attire for that day. Please plan on sending your child in a hat and with sunscreen on. The forecast is showing sunny and a high of 88 for Friday. It is also important that every child has their water bottle!

Our Field Trip is the following week, on Wednesday, March 16th. If you have not done so yet, please sign the waiver allowing your child to attend. :)

That's all for now! Enjoy your Sunday!