May 2-6

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Next Tuesday will be Miss Gilmour’s last day with us.  We will be having a small celebration to give her a proper send-off into the world of teaching.  If you would like to donate some healthy snacks (i.e. fruit, veggies and dip, crackers and cheese) and some drinks, it would be greatly appreciated!  We wish Miss Gilmour the best of luck!

Regular homework packets have begun again.  Please help your child practice their goals at home and return their homework packet the following Monday.  Thank you!

THIS WEEK IN...

Spelling:  We are working on unit 19.  The words are:  must, because, does, part, and even.  Our spelling test will be on Friday.

Phonics:  We are working with the variant vowel sound with the spelling patterns oo and ou.  Our focus words will be:  shook, hook, crook, soot, should, stood, brook, foot, could, and would.  

Vocabulary:  Our new words are:  conservation, remains, trouble, extinct, and hardest.  We’ll define these words and build connections to them.  Then we’ll search for them as we read the short stories called “Prairie Problem” and “Be Careful!  We’re Almost Gone!”

Comprehension:  We will practice understanding text structure.  This week, we will be reading a description.  A description describes what something is like.  Authors use words like “to begin” and “here is how” to describe things in their writing.  We’ll practice this while we read A Way to Help Planet Earth.

Grammar:  We continue to focus on homonyms and contractions in our morning message.  We also practice identifying ending punctuation.

Writing:  This week, we will be writing some very special poems for our moms.  We hope you think they are a special as we do!  We’ll also do some fun writing to help us get ready for our animal research projects.  This week, we’ll read the book What If You Had Animal Feet?.  Then, we’ll decide what kind of animal feet we like best.  We’ll use those feet to collect information about the color, size, and amount of feet we have.  Creativity will come into play with our illustrations.  We’ll also look at how our feet help us adapt to our environment.  It’s sure to be a fun project!

Read Aloud:  We continue on our reading adventure, Dodger and Me.

Math:  Mission Possible continues on Mondays and Fridays.  Team Howard turns into secret spies for an hour and complete top secret missions around time and money.  If we are successful in our missions, we get to earn a fingerprint in our packets.  We can take as much or as little time as we need with the missions.  Team Howard is seriously dedicated to this project! 

We also continue with our math switcheroo groups.  In these groups, student needs are being met through targeted instruction and practice.  All groups are working on adding and subtracting within 100 using strategies.  

Science:  Miss Gilmour’s project about our very own animals will be completed and displayed in the hallway by the end of the week.  We’ll also be doing some lessons about meeting animal needs in a habitat through games and other activities.  On Friday, students will be invited to a beak lab where they will be testing different kinds of beaks for different kinds of food.  

Have a great week!