November 21, 2016

Happy Thanksgiving! This week we have two days of school, November 21 and 22, and we will return to school on November 28th.

This week are doing several Thanksgiving themed activities. We are doing an activity focusing on gratitude and being thankful. Each student will be planning a Thanksgiving meal and will have to decide what items to buy for their dinner with the amount of money they are given. We will also be doing some Thanksgiving math based center activities.

ELA
We have been working on author's point of view in the classroom. We have read a variety of texts both fiction and non-fiction and identifying the author's point of view. We are finishing up a point of view activity with the story The Day the Crayons Quit. In this story the crayons write a letter to the owner of the crayon box explaining their point of view, the students are working in groups to identify each crayons point of view. We have also been working on writing paragraphs expressing our opinion. The students wrote an opinion paragraph about their favorite candy stating reasons with examples about why their candy was the best. They just finished writing an opinion paragraph about their favorite pet. Students used information about their animal to state facts/reasons why their animal was the best and then used the facts/reasons to develop examples for each reason. The students then used Google Classroom to publish their paragraph.

We will be moving on to determining what point of view stories are being told from: 1st, 2nd and 3rd person. We will be using a variety of literature for this activity. During Daily 5 students will be practicing the strategy of making predictions and confirming or revising based on the text of their choice. We will also be working on making inferences. Students will practice making direct observations and then using these observations to make inferences.

Math
We just finished up our two chapters about the foundations of multiplication and division. Our summative test on the division chapter went extremely well for the class. We will now be moving on to multiplication and division number patterns. Throughout these chapters we will also be taking our timed tests while we work towards our banana split party.  Please take time to practice multiplication facts at home.

Social Studies
We just finished our Science unit about animals and completed the summative test. We will now be moving on to Social Studies and the government strand. In this strand the students will learn about: civic participation and skills, rules and laws, and roles and systems of government.

I have had several questions about the students' reading and math logs and what activities they can use for minutes. I feel students should be participating in a variety of reading and math activities. These activities can include reading books or magazines, church bulletins, etc. Computer or app based activities for reading and math may also be included for minutes. If you are participating with your child in a real world application activity that can also count for minutes, such as having your child read and follow a recipe could count for reading and math minutes. Having your child use a grocery store advertisement to plan a meal and plan what food needs to be purchased for a given budget is also an activity that is practical and can count for reading and math minutes.

Reminders:
November 23-25-No School
December 1-3rd Grade Music Concert
December 19-January 2-Winter Break