Hello!
Happy Presidents’ Day Weekend! With our Valentine's Day party, the 100th day of school, and our Habitat presentations, the children had so many fun experiences this week! Speaking of Valentine's Day, I have to send out an additional THANK YOU for all of the wonderful flowers, mug/coffee, boxes of candy, cookies, trail mix, giant Hershey kisses, cute notepads, as well as the homemade cards and notes from the children! I was so amazed at the outpouring of love I received on Valentine's Day. You all truly made my day!
*An important reminder*: Please, please, please remember to send your child to school dressed for the weather. Like the children, I have also been excited about the sun shining and the temperatures being a bit warmer than usual. But keep in mind that the “High” temperature for the day is rarely reached by morning recess at 10:25. Per School Policy, we had to keep several students in for recess this week who came to school in “hoodie” sweatshirts, due to the morning (and some afternoon) temperatures showing only 38 and 40 degrees. We also had several students out sick this week, so we are disinfecting the classroom often to help fight those germs. We want everyone to be as healthy as possible so they can be with us at school. Sending homework home does not replace the learning we accomplish at school!
• We enjoyed watching our 4th graders perform in their musical on Wednesday afternoon.
• Conference times went home. Thank you for sending those green confirmation notes back so quickly! It can be very challenging to arrange the conferences, not only based on parent preference, but also aligning sibling conferences and incorporating additional support staff members’ schedules at the same time. I did my very best to accommodate everyone’s schedules. I look forward to meeting with all of you in the next few weeks!
* We finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory! The children and I decided it would be fun to celebrate the completion of the story by watching the movie together next Friday, while we have our lunches in the classroom!
Spelling
The children practiced words with the /oo/ sound, spelled ‘oo’ and ‘ou’! Next week we will encounter more words with the /oo/ sound, spelled ‘ui,’ ‘u,’ and ‘ue.’
Reading
This week our focus was on the environment. The children expanded their oral vocabularies with the words: purpose, persuade, adjust, defeat and practical. We went on to read a nonfiction text called, “A Way to Help Planet Earth.” The children imagined what the Earth would be like if people didn’t recycle. We learned what happens to the items that we do recycle! The children now understand the concept of a landfill and how it holds the garbage we throw away for years to come. We focused on the comprehension strategy of creating a web to organize the key points of the text we have read. The children put the main idea in the middle, and then summarized the text by attaching key ideas they read in the circles that stem from it. We learned several new vocabulary words that tied in with our texts this week, including: conservation, extinct, hardest, remains, and trouble. The children identified nonfiction text features such as graphs, charts, and actual photographs. We also noticed that there are changes in print in nonfiction texts that catch our attention and give us more information. These features include the size, thickness, slant, and color of the letters. We realized that the author makes these changes to stress important details! We reviewed the idea of comparative and superlative words, noting that comparative words compare two things and end with ‘er’, while superlative words compare many and end in ‘est.’ Yet another skill the children practiced this week was identifying where to break words into syllables!
Grammar
The children worked on irregular verbs including see/saw, do/does, and say/said.
Writing
Our goal was to finish our "Friend" poems this week. Using an organizer, the children were asked to think about a favorite friend with regard to what they look like, sound like, things they do together, etc. The challenge was to take these ideas and think about them in a more figurative way. The children developed similes, bursts of alliteration, as well as onomatopeia and repeated phrases into their descriptions of their friend. I am so impressed with the clever way the children's writing developed in these writing projects! The children have become poets!
Math
We have begun Unit 7! The children brought home Math Journal 1 this week. Please know that while we work in our math journals each day, there still may be a page or two that is incomplete. That’s okay, the journal is a work in progress. Feel free to go through the math journal with your child and have them tell you about what they’ve learned throughout the first half of our school year. Encourage them to go back and complete any incomplete work for a review/reinforcement of learned skills. In Unit 7 the children will be working on patterns in counting. We will be extending this to counting by any number, also known as “n.” The children will be encouraged to describe patterns they see. We have also begun finding complements of 10, (1:9, 2:8, 3:7, 4:6, 5:5) and we realized that when adding numbers that make a ten, it makes adding large numbers really easy!
Science
All week the children worked with their small groups to complete their habitat research and work on their research reports. Together, they decided who would present each section. With the help of Mrs. Dufern, Mrs. Kenney, and Mr. Fijor, the children recorded their learning into a series of podcasts. Then they chose a picture from the internet that matched their research. Finally, we assembled these podcasts into Keynote Presentations! The children viewed each other’s final presentations at school on Friday and had the opportunity to add additional information for their classmates. I was so impressed to see the children take the reigns on their learning during the last two weeks. Their learning was apparent as they talked about all of the facts they’ve accumulated in their small groups and in their presentations. The children took their habitat assessment on Friday, and now we are ready to look ahead to our next Science unit, MOTION!
As always, thank you for reading!
Have a nice, long, President's Day weekend!
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