Happy Sunday Families!
What an eventful two weeks we have had with our Halloween celebration and Trimester 1 coming to an end shortly. It's crazy to believe that we're almost through a third of the 23-24 school year! Included in this update, you will find the family letter for our upcoming unit in math on place value and decimals, which we just started at the end of this week.
Literacy
Last week, we read a nonfiction text titled Explorers: Triumphs and Troubles. This text highlighted the details and impact of various explorers' expeditions throughout history. As we read the text, we worked on identifying the author's main point/s while determining reasons and evidence as support. This week, we continued to practice these skills with a variety of highly engaging texts, such as an article from Newsela titled, “Candy corn note to humans - We are not edible, we taste like feet”. To practice determining the author's main point/s, we ask ourselves, "What does the author MOST want us to know or believe about what was written?"
Next week, after we take our Cycle 2 CFA, we will be shifting back to fiction to read Washed Up and practice determining the theme of the story. We will also look at how to summarize a text using the theme to help guide the summary.
Writing
Our students recently finished their first analytical writing piece, using the nonfiction text from literacy, Explorers: Triumphs and Troubles. Students had very strong opinions about which explorer was the worst! Their focus was to write engaging body paragraphs that include their big ideas and evidence. We also discussed what makes a strong topic sentence and conclusion sentence. Be sure to ask your child to share it with you! They made quite the compelling arguments!
Math
Our students are continuing their work with decimals in Unit 3. They are currently refining their skills in the area of reading, writing, modeling and comparing decimals. Earlier in the week we took a checkpoint in order to gauge how well students are understanding these concepts. Next week, we will be working on expanding, adding, and subtracting decimals. Students are also learning about the metric system during our November number corner collection and will continue to work on conversions after our Unit 3 assessment.
Social Studies
Students have continued their inquiry based activities focused on exploring the rich history of the Indigenous people of America. We’ve been looking closely and analyzing different resources that describe the First Thanksgiving, looking for ideas that challenge commonly known ideas about the day. Students will be working cooperatively in groups, to research and present information they discover while looking through a variety of books and videos that may or may not accurately represent the First Thanksgiving.
Halloween Pictures!
Upcoming Events
Monday, November 6 - Beginning Band Concert (@ 7:00pm)
Monday, November 13 - Orchestra Concert (@ 7:30 PM)
Thursday, November 16 - Family Reading Night (@ 6:30-7:30 PM)
Friday, November 17 - Trimester 1 Report Cards Go Live (@ 3:00 PM)
Wednesday, November 22 - Friday, November 24 - No School (Thanksgiving Break)
Tuesday, November 28 - Early Release (Dismissal @ 2:05 PM)
Friendly Reminders
Please remind your student to charge his/her iPad and Logitech Crayon every night
Please remember to send your student with a healthy snack - nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!
Please continue to have your student practice their multiplication facts up to 12
If your child participates in orchestra or band, please remind him/her to bring their instrument on their lesson day.
Enzie Pangilinan
