April 13-16

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Homework packets are due on Thursday!  Spring break homework packets will also go home on Thursday.  

On Thursday, Spark's Ark will be visiting Russell School.  This will be a great kickoff for our spring animal projects!

There is no school on Friday, April 17 as it is teachers' comp day for conferences.  Enjoy the extra day with your kiddos!

The April spelling test will be on Thursday, April 30.  It will cover units 24-27.

This week in...

Phonics:  We will be working with the diphthong sound /ou/ with the spelling patterns ow and ou.  Our focus words are:  clown, growl, howl, brown, crown, round, loud, cloud, house, and sound.

Spelling:  We will work on unit 26.  The words are:  line, set, own, under, and read.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  lengthy, burrow, ranger, warning, distant, and beyond.  We'll define these words and show we know what they mean in our vocabulary books.  Then, we'll search for them in the short story called "The Coatis of the Sonora Desert".

Comprehension:  We'll work on identifying the author's purpose.  We'll use the acronym PIE to help us.  Did the author write the story to PERSUADE, INFORM, or ENTERTAIN us?  We'll practice this skill while we read Dig, Wait, Listen:  A Desert Toad's Tale by April Pulley Sayre.

Grammar:  We will focus on personal pronouns.  Personal pronouns are words that take the place of a noun or nouns.  For example, "he" could take the place of "Bobby" in a sentence.  "It" might take the place of "the desert".

Writing:  We'll focus on two more kinds of poetry this week.  First, we'll write sensory poems.  Sensory poems describe a feeling or emotion with your senses.  Here is an example:

Happiness

Happiness is yellow.
It looks like my friends and family smiling.
It smells like freshly baked chocolate chip cookies.
It tastes like ice cold lemonade on a hot day.
It sounds like the ocean waves crashing on the sand.
It feels like a big, warm, hug.
Happiness is love.

Then, we'll write haikus.  A haiku is a Japanese poem that is written in three lines.  The first and last lines have 5 syllables.  The second line has 7 syllables.  Here is an example:

Ocean

Bright blue in color
Waves crashing on the warm sand
Smell the salty air

Math:  We'll continue with our flexible groups for word problems with a focus on adding and subtracting within 100.  We'll also practice odd/even and arrays.  Our goal for odd/even is to be able to identify numbers 1-20 as odd or even and to prove it with a doubles or near doubles number sentence.  Even numbers can be represented with a doubles number sentence.   Odd numbers can be represented with a near doubles number sentence.  Our goal for arrays it to be able to use repeated addition to find the total number of squares in a rectangular array.

Science:  We are continuing our work with landforms.  So far, we know how to identify several kinds of landforms.  Last week, we started talking about weathering and erosion and how they can change the shape of landforms.  Wind, sun, water, and ice all have the power to change different kinds of landforms over time.  

This week, we'll be using a globe to talk about where water can be found on earth.  The goal is to understand that most of the Earth is covered by water and that it can be found in both liquid (water) and solid form (ice).

Penguins:  As a class, we will be studying penguins as a kickoff to our animal projects.  This week, we'll be reading nonfiction books about penguins and collecting facts about what they look like, what they eat, where they live, and also some interesting facts.  By the end of the week, we'll have a report written showing all of the information we have learned about penguins.  When we come back from spring break, the team will be put into small groups to research specific kinds of penguins. 

Poetry:  Since April is national poetry month, we'll also be enjoying the many humorous poems of Shel Silverstein.  We'll be reading his book Where the Sidewalk Ends.