This is our last newsletter of 2019! It has been a rollercoaster adventure for sure. I am so excited to see what the remainder of the year has in store for us. This week we took a break from our curriculum things, and have focused heavily on our religion unit, some fun writing activities, and some math.
We have wrapped up our religion unit and we are moving forward with our project. The students will be conducting "interviews" of the people we studied (Moses, Samuel, Mary, Elizabeth & Zechariah, Esther, John the Baptist, and Gabriel). They each have a character to play and they will be able to show what they learned through these interviews. Today we started writing questions that we think the people we learned about would have answered and tomorrow we will move toward the recording process. My goal is to get them all recorded and uploaded onto Class dojo by Friday. However, if not then we will wrap that up when we return in January. On Friday, we will have our Christmas Party at 2pm. If you would like to come to the party, please feel free to come! On Thursday we will do a lot of Christmas games, and activities to take a break from all of the other things that we've covered this week. On Monday, we will have an early dismissal at 11:30. The only students who will need to be in attendance are those who will be in the service. If you have any questions please feel free to reach out and let me know. Happy Holidays! Important Dates:
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We are approaching the last day of school before winter break! The kiddos have begun a count down, but please encourage them to stay focused, and on task until the very end. Class participation has gone down tremendously.
Last week we had a class discussion on the things we see going on that we do not like and how we can change them. We then made a social studies connection and create a classroom Bill of Rights. This will hold them truly accountable because they decided that if any of the rights are broken, a fine should be paid. However on the back side, there were a couple instances where some friends didn't want to work with their team/group and had some groups had inner conflict. We will continue to work on this, and get better so that we can have a loving/peaceful rest of the year. Reading: The essential question for the week is, "what do we know about Earth and it's neighbors?" This week we are dabbling into the world of science as we take a deeper look into our essential question. We had a great discussion on Monday about what we know and how we know those things. So, as we began to read the stories for the week, we will continue to build off of that conversation. We even watched a few minutes of a Magic School Bus episode. The reading strategy that we will focus on this week is main idea and key details. They struggled with explain what they thought main idea was and how to find it. So, for the rest of the week, we will continue to study main idea and focus on how to identify it in different text. We will also spend some time revisiting theme and it's relationship to main idea. In grammar we will be focusing on past-tense verbs and all of their special rules and how we can include them in our writing. Math: Our math test on topic 5 will be tomorrow (12/11). Please encourage them to look over the practice test as that is essentially how the test will look just with different numbers and names. Continue to talk about the different properties that we learned as they sometimes will be needed in questions where they have to explain. Continue to have them use and explain the different strategies that we used because they will need to apply them on the test. Have them practice writing multiplication and divison problems. The key to writing them is to remember that for multiplication it is Equal group (EG) x Amount in each (AE) =Total (T). Where as with divison you can write it in two different ways (T divided into EG and you solve for AE) or (T split apart with AE and you solve for EG). Please let me know if you have any questions. Social Studies: We have wrapped up the first chapter in our first Unit. We will begin studying for the test Wednesday. We will work together to create a study guide. I will show them one way to study, but encourage them to study in a way that will benefit them. Their test will be Friday. With the break approaching we will not start the next chapter, but we will do some things related to Christmas around the world. Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Important information:The students sing for chapel tomorrow. The service begins at 7pm, please have them there by 6:30 so they can practice with Mrs. Dennen. If you would like to eat dinner, then arrive between 6-6:30. The students are asked to have on a white shirt and dark (black or blue) bottoms. Also, we can use more singers for the 6pm Christmas Eve Service, so if you can switch or do both, please let myself or Mrs. Dennen know. Important Dates:
Hello families I hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving break! I heard about some of the awesome things you did while on break. As we move through these next couple of weeks, it is important that they are truly on top of things. The Christmas Eve service is very important and we need everyone to do their part. We've been practicing our verses and our songs and I cannot wait for you all to hear how beautiful they sound!
Religion: We are moving along in our Christmas unit by focusing on the ordinary people that God chose to do extraordinary things. We have talked about Moses and Samuel. We started to discuss Esther, and will finish talking about her on Thursday. After Esther we will talk about Zechariah and Elizabeth, Mary, and John the Baptist before talking about Jesus himself. Reading: The essential question for the week is, "How can one person change the way you think? " We spent some time discussing this. A lot of them thought of things such as force, bribe, and trick. It took some time, but we were able to talk through some positive ideas such as motivate, inspire and encourage. We also spent some time talking about leadership, courage and bravery and how they connect to the essential question. We are revisiting historical fiction and cause and effect this week, so the reading assignments should be fairly simple. We focused on three figures from history already, Jackie Robinson, Eleanor Roosevelt and Madam CJ Walker. We will a historical fiction piece on Abraham Lincoln as well. We will also spend some time with present-tense verbs and we will discus how we can use them in our writing. Math: We are approaching the end of topic 5. On Monday we went all the way back to 5-1, as upon grading it was evident that they struggled with that concept. The last couple of lessons involve word problems. We will learn how to solve them, and then we will take some time to write them ourselves. I anticipate that the test will either be Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. For this topic, we were introduced to the multiplication table, so practice using one of those at home. You can have them create their own and use it to solve practice problems. When it comes to homework, encourage them to practice one of the many strategies that we've learned (repeated addition/subtraction, arrays, bar diagrams, pictures of equal group). Social Studies: We are finishing up the first chapter of our unit. We will do some group presentations on the Bill of Rights, and finish up the last lesson before we move into the review stage. I anticipate that the test will be next week either Thursday or Friday. With this being our first test, we will spend a good amount of time prepping to make sure that we are ready. We will create a study guide together so that they walk out feeling prepared and ready. Important Dates:
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