Thursday, March 9, 2017

3-10-17

3-10-17


Thank you to Mrs. Weaver for being our first guest reader for March.  She chose a real tongue twister!!!  Fox in Socks





We finally wrapped up Module 5 this week.  Please look for both the Mid-Module and the End of Module Assessments.  If you notice that your child is still struggling with the addition and subtraction of 3-digit numbers, please try to keep practicing at home.  I will continue to practice at school as well.  My recommendation would be to pick one strategy that works for your child and stick with it until mastery.  All the different strategies are great for some kids but will also confuse others. 

Module 6:  Foundations of Multiplication and Division 









This week: During the next few weeks, we will be exploring the theme Changes, Changes Everywhere. We will read about babies that grow up, making new friends, how plants grow—even how goat wool gets changed into a rug! As we read, we will explore the Big Idea “Living things change over time. ”During this first week, we read Penguin Chick, about emperor penguins and how they raise their babies. This selection gave us information to use as we think about the question “How do you know which facts are important?

This week’s…

Target Vocabulary: finally, junior, otherwise, slippery, steer, waterproof, webbed, whistle

Phonics Skills: Words with r-controlled vowels er (father), ir (bird), ur (nurse)

Grammar Skill:  Adjectives

Comprehension Skill: Main ideas and details—tell important ideas and details about a topic

Comprehension Strategy: Infer/predict—use text clues to figure out important ideas



We are a bit behind in social studies.  One of these weeks, we are just going to have a social studies party to catch up.  We are slowly picking away at map skills.  Eventually we will turn our focus to continents and oceans.  Then we need to get started on our economics unit.  As you can see, we have a lot of topics to cover.  I usually am able to catch up on everything towards the end of the year because we will be in a less demanding spot with language arts and math.

Friday, March 3, 2017

3-3-17

3-3-17

Field Trip


We are headed to Shaw Theater on Monday, March 6th to see Jeremy Thatcher, Dragon Hatcher.  Everyone must bring their own lunch to school that day because we will be eating in our room.  The bus leaves around 11:30 and we will be back around 2:15.  Please let me know if you need me to order a sack lunch for your child from the cafeteria that day.


Snacks

Thank you to everyone who brings in snacks for the class every month.  If it's not too big of a hassle, already packaged snacks are the easiest and quickest.  There not as messy either.  Already packaged cheez-its or goldfish work great.  I can just pass them out quickly and we are on our way.  If I have to go around the room pouring cheez-its out of a box, then it takes a bit more time.



We are looking for parent volunteers to come into the classroom the whole month of March and share their favorite book with the class.  I realize everyone is very busy but if you happen to have a day off and would like to read to our class, please let me know.  We can work around your schedule.  



Every 2nd grader in Portage will be given the OLSAT test.  You should have received a letter earlier in the week explaining the test.  We have a 10 day window between March 20th-30th to administer the test to the kids.  It is broken up into 3 different parts that take around 30 minutes each.  The results of the test won't be sent home until sometime over the summer.




DINING OUT FUNDRAISER AT CULVER'S


This week we wrapped up our Heroes and Helpers unit by exploring the question “How can stories be alike and different?” First, we read the fantasy story Dex: The Heart of a Hero, about a dog that becomes a superhero! We also learned about some real heroes in the informational text Heroes Then and Now.

Target Vocabulary: depended, overlooked, sprang, studied, gazing, hero, exercise, sore 

Phonics Skills: Words with r-controlled vowels or (for), ore (bore) 

Vocabulary Strategy: Prefix over- (means “above” or “beyond”) 

Comprehension Skill: Compare and contrast—tell how two things are alike or not

Comprehension Strategy: Monitor/ clarify—find ways to figure out what doesn’t make sense 

We completed our Mid-Module 5 Assessment last week which was pretty much all on adding 3-digit numbers using number bonds, arrow way, and composing or the vertical way.  This week we have been focusing on decomposing 3-digit numbers.  We will probably take the End of Module 5 assessment towards the end of next week.

Lesson 14 &15 
Objective: Use math drawings to represent subtraction with up to two decompositions, relate drawings to the algorithm, and use addition to explain why the subtraction method works.





Lesson  16 & 17 
Objective: Subtract from multiples of 100 and from numbers with zero in the tens place.




Lesson 18
Objective: Apply and explain alternate methods for subtracting from multiples of 100 and from numbers with zero in the tens place.


Use compensation to solve 300 – 159




Add to solve 400 – 278


Compensation  800 - 543