September 27th

Reading: Our focus text in our reading magazine for this week was titled, “Filiberto in the Valley”. We used this story to continue our practice of retelling key details, determining the story elements, and clarifying the meaning of unknown words. We also read Chrysthanthemum to continue using context clues to help with new vocabulary words. Our phonics lessons this week were all about the various spelling patterns for the long a sound.

 

Writing: We continued working on writing our informational writing piece. Students have completed their introductions, two body paragraphs, and a conclusion. We wrapped up the week by learning how to revise our writing to make it stronger. We learned about adjectives and then worked to add adjectives to our draft to make it more descriptive. 

Math: This week we learned how to read picture graphs and bar graphs. Students also practiced being able to answer a variety of questions from looking at the data in the graphs. Finally, we have been learning how to make the graphs from data in a tally table.

Science: Students conducted an experiment to observe the various properties of a group of materials. They recorded their observations about color, shape, texture, and flexibility. Then we learned how engineers could combine the materials together to create a pencil. Finally, students practiced how to make a scientific drawing with labels.

September 20th

 Reading: Our focus text in our reading magazine for this week was titled, “Habitats Around the World”. A few skills that we worked on this week include: asking questions, determining the main topic and supporting details, and comparing and contrasting 2 passages with similar topics.

Our phonics lessons worked on the following skill: Open and closed syllables

Math: This week we continued focusing on finding efficient strategies to solve both addition and subtraction problems. We’ve been working on using number bonds, open number lines, and count on / count back strategies. We took our Mid-Unit 1 test, and our next lesson topic is data and graphing.

Class Meeting: We love learning about our classmates during our daily class meetings. On Wednesdays we think it is fun to have the topic of “Would You Rather Wednesdays.” Our teacher leader records our responses and then shares the results at the end of our meeting.

Science: This week we started our first science unit, “A Home for a Penguin!”  In this unit we learn about the 3 states of matter, properties of materials, and insulators and conductors.  This week we have been learning about ways to describe and classify materials by their observable properties. 

Writing: We began our first informational writing piece.  We are all writing about the grasslands.  We have learned about the grasslands in Africa, North America, and Australia and have written notes from a text and a video on the topic.  We then determined subtopics that we will have for our 2 body paragraphs on the Grasslands (Savannas and Prairies).

We visited the library this week for a lesson with Mrs. Levine. The students are welcome to bring back their library books any day of the week so they can exchange them for new ones. We have even been learning how to order library books from our ipads. After using our ipads to order a book from our school library it shows up on the student’s desk. It’s like Amazon for our classroom! 

Our class celebration was so much fun! The students each got to share with the class about the item they brought in. Then we took a little time to play. :) 

September 13th

Reading: Our focus text for this week was titled, Emperor Penguin Habitat.” A few skills that we worked on this week include: asking questions, creating mental images, and rereading to clarify or confirm our understanding. Our phonics lessons worked on the following skills: short vowels, initial and final blends, and consonant digraphs. 

Writing: We began learning how to write to a text based prompt. We learned about how to research and take notes to write an informative essay. We gathered our information from both the passage we read during reading time titled, Emperor Penguin Habitat and a video about emperor penguins, as well. This week we also began learning how to type using our keyboards.

Math: Our class has been focusing on finding efficient strategies to solve both addition and subtraction problems. We’ve been working on using number bonds, open number lines, and count on / count back strategies. If your child would like to practice their math facts at home, they can use the information found in their green take home folder to login on xtramath.com. 

Social Emotional Learning: This week our main topics were showing compassion and predicting feelings. 

September 6th

Reading: This week we read some wonderful stories including Beautiful and The Most Magnificent Thing. We also read a poem called Who Has Seen the Wind? Our class has been practicing annotating texts. That means we pause to make note of our thinking.

Writing: We continued talking about different types of sentences, and we learned about what is needed to make a complete sentence. Our class learned how to use our personal dictionaries, and we finished writing our stories about our experiences with storms. The students did a great job, and at the end of the week they shared their stories with their classmates.

 

Math: We wrapped up our first lesson on addition strategies, and we started lesson 2 which focuses on subtraction strategies. Our class began working on our iReady math lessons. Those lessons help us practice math concepts that are at our own individualized pace.

Social Emotional Learning: We continued our Second Steps lessons. This week’s lessons focused on Empathy. We discussed identifying feelings, discussing more about feelings and feeling confident.