May 16-20

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Tonight is the Spring Concert!  I hope to see you all there.  Second graders begin their performance at 6:40 so please try to arrive at the Middle School by 6:30 at the latest.  I heard their rehearsal today.  They sound fabulous!

Tomorrow we will have a guest reader join our class from Hannaford.  We are so excited to see what story Ms. Penny will share with us!

Wednesday is an early release day.  Please plan accordingly.

On Thursday, we will have a presentation from the Children’s Museum.  They will be bringing us a life-size inflatable model of a humpback whale!  We’ll learn all about the life of Istar, a humpback whale who lived in the Atlantic Ocean.   This will be the perfect kickoff to our animal study unit!

Classroom Requests:

We are going to be creating dioramas to go along with our animal projects.  Every student will need to bring a shoebox.  If you could please send at least one shoebox, or more if you happen to have them, it would be greatly appreciated!

I would really like to create team jerseys for Team Howard and I’m thinking that tie-dye shirts would be a lot of fun!  For this, we’ll need three things.  First, we’ll need every student to send in a plain white t-shirt to be tie-dyed.  Next, if there is anyone who would be willing to send in tie-dying supplies, that would be great!  Finally, when the time comes, I will definitely need to have some adult volunteers to help us tie-dye the shirts.  

Paper reminders for the two above requests will also be sent home this week.  Keep an eye out for them!

THIS WEEK IN...

Spelling:  This will be a review/challenge week.  I’m so sorry I wasn’t able to pull your child’s individual list together before the end of the day.  I’ll be sure to get the lists home with your child tomorrow.  They will be given ten words to study and will be assessed on the words on Friday.

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

Vocabulary: Our new words are:  lengthy, burrow, ranger, warning, distant, and beyond.  We’ll define these words and then search for them in the short story called “The Coatis of the Sonora Desert” by Nya Taylor.

Comprehension:  This week we’ll focus on identifying author’s purpose.  We can remember author’s purpose with the acronym PIE.  Authors write to Persuade, Inform, or Entertain.  We’ll be searching for clues in the text and the pictures to tell us what the author’s true purpose is.  We’ll practice this skill while we read Dig, Wait, Listen:  A Desert Toad’s Tale by April Pulley Sayre.

Grammar:  This week we will focus on homophones.  Homophones are words that sound the same but are spelled differently and have a different meaning.

Writing:  This week, we’ll introduce our animal study unit.  We’ll begin by studying penguins as a class.  Next week, we’ll break into small groups to study specific penguins.  We’ll learn more about what they look like, what they eat, where they live, and some other interesting facts.  We’ll also be given time to explore many different animals to help us decide on an animal we would like to learn even more about.  This animal will be the focus of our animal projects.

Math:  We continue our math switcheroo groups.  All students are working towards being able to fluently add and subtract within 100 and 1,000, add up to four two-digit numbers, and to add or subtract 10 or 100 mentally from any number.  We also continue our individual practice in time, money, and math facts.  

Science:  We’ll finish up The Wings of Life tomorrow afternoon.  Then, we’ll have the chance to research specific habitats.  We’ll be looking at the diversity of life within the desert, rain forest, ocean, and also at the pond.  

Read Aloud:  We have started a new book that was generously donated to the classroom by a student.  It’s called Trouble-Maker by Andrew Clements.  It’s the story about a boy named Clay and his journey in understanding the difference between good-humored mischief and serious trouble.  So far, we know that Clay has trouble respecting his teachers and his principal.  Today, in art class, Clay drew a picture of the school principal like a donkey!

Words to Think About:  Don’t let what you can’t do, stop you from doing what you can do.