December 1-5

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

We will be going on a field trip to Memorial School TOMORROW!  If I have not received a permission slip from you already, you should see a GREEN copy of the permission in your child’s backpack today.  Please make sure you sign it and return it to school first thing in the morning.  If we do not receive permission from you, your child will not be able to join us on the field trip.

Vacation Homework Packets will be due on Thursday!  Some students chose to turn them in today and that it totally fine.  If your child did not turn it in today, they will have until Thursday to pass it in.

Mrs. Thibodeau will be visiting us again on Friday!  Her friend Kelso and George will be coming to discuss ways we can be better friends and solve the small problems we might have with our friends.

Please be sure to send your child to school with their winter coat, snow pants, snow boots, hats, and mittens.  Without these things, they will not be allowed to play in the snow.

THIS WEEK IN...

Phonics:  We are working with the long /o/ sound with the spelling patterns /o/, /oe/, /oa/, and /ow/.  Here are our focus words:  grow, mow, crow, toe, goes, toast, soap, foam, told, and most.  

Spelling:  We took our December pre-test today.  I will get them graded and sent back to you by Thursday.  This should help you know what words to focus on for homework.  The post-test will be on December 18th.  This week, we will focus on unit 9.  The words are:  its, who, now, people, and my.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  imaginary, uniform, practices, starting, tryouts, and coach.  We’ll define these words and build connections to them.  Then, we’ll search for them in the short story called “Brian Gets Fit on the Field” by Emily Goldman.

Comprehension:  This week we will practice making inferences again.  When you make an inference, you make a decision about the story based on what you know and what you read in the story.  We’ll practice this skill while we read There’s Nothing LIke Baseball by Angela Johnson.

Writing:  This week, students will practice writing an explanation.  An explanation includes personal feelings, lively details, and reasons that help the reader understand the writer’s opinion or experience.  Team Howard will write about something they like to do.  They will explain why you enjoy doing that activity and also add lively words to their writing.  When they are finished, they will read their explanation to a partner.

Grammar:  We will be working with plural nouns.  A plural noun names more than one person place or thing.  To change most singular nouns to plural nouns, add -s.  If a singular noun ends in s, sh, ch, or x, we will add -es to make it plural.

Math:  December will be a month for us to focus on time and money.  We will also be introducing many place value skills that will be essential in our next unit.  We’ll introduce these skills by playing lots of fun games!  Here are the goals for time and money:

Time:  I can tell and write time to the nearest five minutes, using a.m. and p.m.

Money:  I can identify the value of a penny, nickel, dime, quarter, and dollar.  I can use addition to add coins together for amounts greater than $1.00.  I can use $ and ¢ appropriately.

Science:  We just started a new science unit:  Matter, Matter, All Around!  Matter is anything that takes up space.  We can classify matter into three categories:  solids, liquids, and gases.  This week, we will be exploring different kinds of matter and deciding whether they are a solid, liquid, or gas based on their properties.  Here are some examples:

Solids:  Trees, pencils, bookshelf, sand, chairs, etc.

Liquids:  Water, soda, milk, gasoline, etc.

Gases:  Air, Helium, a big gust of wind, etc.

Scholastic News:  With the holiday season upon us, we will be reading a Scholastic News issue titled Holiday Economics.  We’ll learn how people decide what gifts to buy, who makes the gifts, and how we get the gifts to the people we love.  We’ll learn words like goods, service, and budget.  Then, we’ll become economics experts!  Using what we learned in the article, we will decide whether something is a good or a service and also if certain gifts fit the character’s budget.

Read Aloud:  We are getting closer and closer to the end of Stanley, Flat Again!  My goal is to get Team Howard’s flat kids in the mail by the end of the week.  We are definitely looking forward to learning more about the different places in the world!