September 23

Reading:

This week we started out practicing having constructive conversations within a small group while discussing a read aloud. We will continue to practice and refine this skill throughout the school year. Then, on Thursday we started our new reading unit.  In this unit we will be reading texts about plants and animal habitats.  We are learning how to ask questions while reading to keep our mind focused, identifying the main idea and key details, and how to use context clues to determine the meaning of vocabulary.

Writing:

Our focus in writing is informational essays.  We have been learning about the parts of an informational essay (introduction, facts and details, and a conclusion) and how to include these within our own writings. 

Math:

In math this week we finished up our set of lessons on word problems and have moved onto data and graphing.  We also took our mid unit test over addition and subtraction on Friday. 

Science:

We continued our unit on plants.  This week we explored how different areas allow for growth of different plants.  We conducted an experiment to see how to tell how much water and sunlight plants need to grow and did our 2nd set of observations of our Marigold and Dill plants.  

This week we also enjoyed our “Game Time” class celebration, and we got to meet our 5th grade buddies!