Week 12 Newsletter

Announcements

RED RIBBON WEEK!

         Monday – Wear a RED shirt with uniform bottoms

         Tuesday – Wear your TACKIEST outfit

         Wednesday – Wear ORANGE & BLACK – Happy HALLOWEEN

         Thursday – Student Council Costume Day

         Friday – Wear your favorite SPORTS TEAM SHIRT/COLORS

Homework

·       Achieve3000 – We will take a break from this November/December unless I see individual needs

·       ELA spiral review

Reading

In reading this week we learned about main idea and supporting details. We talked about ways to determine the main idea of passages like: read the title, read the first and last sentence, look at photographs/captions, read subheadings, and ask yourself “what is this MAINLY about?” We read both Reading Wonders stories this week and completed graphic organizers together, with partners, and independently. Then I gave students a craft activity to complete Thursday. I am usually hesitant to give activities like this because it causes a lot of chatter and less engaged work time BUT you could have heard a pin drop! They were ON IT and the finished products reflected the standard, integrated science (solar system), and they looked great! Students took a formative assessment over main idea today and I will pull those students Monday/Tuesday and then they will take the cold read over main idea Wednesday.

Writing

In writing we discussed adding sensory details to our narratives. I gave them work time to come up with sentences to go with their “seeds” and then we looked at anchor charts to go deeper and make those even better. For example, their sensory sentences should be more “show, don’t tell” so there shouldn’t be a lot of pronouns and they should not actually use the sensory word they are describing in the sentence. Figurative language should be included and word choice should be bold!

We also looked at effective usage of dialogue in our narratives. Students came up with only a few sentences that they felt they could include in their stories that would flow. We did not want to “force” anything just for the sake of putting in dialogue. Next week we will begin editing and revising! I am hoping to wrap these up and put a nice little bow on these SOON! J

Grammar

We continued looking at sentences, fragments, and run-ons. We just continued practicing how to correct fragments and run-ons with commas, conjunctions, and even semicolons. Next week we will do some fun grammar Halloween centers Thursday!

Social Studies

We WILL get through the major battles next week! J (fingers crossed!)

Week 11 Newsletter

Announcements

10/22- Tuesday – Grandparents Lunch

10/25 – Friday – Spirit Day – Kids wear JEANS and BDMA shirt

Homework

Achieve3000

Grammar Spiral Review – Our kids NEED this!

Reading

We had a short week this week! This week in reading we learned about our last text structure, cause/effect. We read about forces in motion in our Reading Wonders anthology and completed a trifold activity that included all our reading skills for the week. We will continue to review text structures throughout this year. Next week we will move onto main idea/supporting details.

Grammar

In grammar this week we continued to talk about sentences, fragments, and run-ons. Students completed a sorting activity independently and we went over it in explicit detail together. Then they completed one independently for a grade. We will continue this next week and begin looking at dependent and independently clauses. I will also be sending home a spiral grammar homework sheet. This is ALL review for them and shouldn’t take them more than 5 minutes to complete each night.

Social Studies

This week we finished up the important people and took a quiz today. Next week we will begin talking about the major battles of the war J

Week 9 Newsletter

Reading

In reading this week we completed our second round of literacy centers! Our centers included students comparing and contrasting historical people of the American Revolution, US Weekly crosswords, a synonym matching game, mult-meaning task cards, conferencing with teacher on talking to text, and read-to-self to apply talking to text strategy. It was a busy week we but we got it all in! Next week students will complete 1-10 of the cold read, Monday, as a formative grade. Then Wednesday they will complete 11-20 of the cold read as a summative grade. This is the last week I will be breaking the cold reads into two parts. Starting at the beginning of the second nine weeks students will take complete questions 1-20 in one setting. This is how they took their cold read assessments in third grade and how they will take them in fifth grade as well.

Writing

In writing this week we finished writing the middle section of our narrative rough drafts. I modeled our class narrative and we specifically discussed the use of sensory words/details, use of dialogue, word choice awareness, and use of transitions. Next week we will begin to work on the conclusions of our rough drafts and then continue to look for places to add sensory details and MEANINGFUL dialogue.

Grammar

In grammar this week we discussed complete subjects/complete predicates, fragments, complete sentences. Next week we will learn about run-on sentences and continue to review the basic parts of speech.

Social Studies

In social studies this week we began learning about the important people of the American Revolution. Students received their graphic organizers and we started with Ben Franklin. They will have this in their DOG books daily so you can review this with them if you would like (so there won’t be so much to do before the test J ). Next week we will continue to review the people and the accomplishments they made in the colonists move towards independence.