April 6-10

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Please remember to send students to school with all of their outdoor winter gear, especially on Mondays!  We had an outdoor science lesson today and many students were not prepared or properly dressed to be able to participate in the activity as it was designed.  As long as there is snow on the ground, students need to bring boots, snow pants, coats, hats, and mittens.

Wednesday is an early release day!  Please plan accordingly.

Thursday is spring picture day!

Homework packets are due on Thursday.

The April spelling test will be on Thursday, April 30th.  Please help your child practice their spelling words at home.  This month, we are working on units 24-27.

This week in..

Spelling:  We are working on Unit 25.  The words are:  should, home, big, give, and air.

Phonics:  We are working with the variant vowel sound /o/ with the patterns au and aw.  Our focus words are:  pause, launch, fault, jaw, raw, law, hawk, fawn, draw, and crawl.

Vocabulary:  Our new words are noble, promised, gleamed, wiggled, beloved, and glanced.  After defining these words, we’ll search for them in a short story called, “My Home in Alaska”.

Comprehension:  We will continue our work with making inferences.  When we make inferences, we take our schema and evidence from the story to make a decision about the book.  This week, we’ll practice this skill while we read Nutik, the Wolf Pup by Jean Craighead George.

Grammar:  This week, we will focus on contractions.  A contraction is a short form of two words.  An apostrophe replaces the letters left out when the two words are joined.  Here are some examples of contractions:  aren’t, isn’t, hasn’t, haven’t, shouldn’t, and can’t.

Writing:  We will continue to work on poetry.  This week, we’ll learn all about acrostic poems and cinquain poems.  An acrostic poem is when you take a word and each letter of that word becomes the first letter in a sentence or phrase that describes that topic.  Here is an example acrostic poem:

Sun is shining

Playing outside with friends

Raining, raining, raining

Insects buzzing around

New animals are being born

Growing lots of new plants

A cinquain poem is five line poem that follows a specific pattern.  The first line is one word that is the topic.  The second line is two adjectives that describe the topic.  The third line is three verbs about the topic.  The fourth line is four words or a sentence to describe your feelings about the topic.  The fifth line is a synonym for the topic.  

Here is an example cinquain poem:

Dolphin

playful, intelligent

jumping, spinning, swimming

incredible animals to observe

mammal

Math:  We will continue our strategy flexible groups.  We are working towards mastery in the following standards:

1. Fluently add and subtract within 100 using strategies.
2.   Solve one and two step word problems using strategies.

We will also practice our telling time goals.  We will review telling time to the nearest five minutes and also the difference between a.m. and p.m.

Science:  Today, we created our very own landform... a mountain!   We also added a valley and a cave.  Then, we discussed different bodies of water that we could find on a mountain.  Later this week, we’ll begin discussing how landforms change.  We’ll read a book called Cracking Up:  A Story About Erosion.  The book talks about how water, ice, wind, and sun wear away at the Earth’s surfaces and the changes that occur.

Scholastic News:  This week, we’ll read an issue titled Beautiful Balloon.  The article is all about the science behind hot air balloons.  Then, we’ll use a diagram to answer questions about hot air balloons.

New Library Books Fun:  I was able to find some great new books to add to our classroom library this weekend!  This week, Team Howard will work with partners to pick one of the new books and create a brochure about them.  The brochure will include a cover page, the characters, setting, beginning, middle, end, and juicy words.  They will also rate the new book with stars... one star being terrible and five stars being the best!  Finally, they will write a persuasive letter to the reader of the brochure telling them why they should read the new book.

Early Release Day Fun:  Earth Day is celebrated in the month of April, so this week we will be reading The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.  After reading the book, we’ll write about some of the things we can do to help keep the Earth a beautiful place to live.  For some added fun, we’ll also create our very own truffula trees!