Good Morning Families!
I hope you are enjoying the beautiful weather we have been having lately and spending some time outdoors! There has been a lot going on in our classroom this past month, and we are looking forward to what the school year still has in store for us. Here are the concepts we are currently/planning to work on:
Reading
Over the last couple of weeks, our students have read various texts in order to determine the narrator's point of view. Much of our instruction revolved around Road to Freedom and Pedro's Journey, a story about a boy who works as a shipboy on Christopher Columbus' journey to the Americas. Through these texts, our students were able to have an understanding of how a narrator’s perspective can influence the way events are described. We are looking forward to continuing our new longer shared text, The Night of the Spadefoot Toad, next week.
Writing
Our students wrapped up their first narrative pieces. They demonstrated great success utilizing their graphic organizers to plan and develop their stories through the use of a detailed sequence of events and effective character development. Students were also encouraged to add dialogue into their writing to enhance the reader’s understanding of their characters, setting, and events. Over the last week, students practiced writing a continuation narrative for Pedro's Journey. They did a great job maintaining setting, character traits, and incorporating plot elements in their writing.
Math
Our students wrapped up Unit 1, which focused on evaluating numerical expressions with parentheses, using the correct order of operations. We are also a month into our Number Corner lessons, which have been focused around clock and money fractions and finding the volume of rectangular prisms. Next week we will begin Unit 2, which will focus on addition and subtraction of fractions. The introduction of clock and money fractions in Number Corner will help to provide a springboard for teaching our students to find common denominators before adding or subtracting fractions.
Science
We are wrapping up our discussions about ecosystems. Over the last couple of weeks, we learned about consumers and the flow of energy through an ecosystem. We learned that consumers must eat animals in order to obtain their energy and to survive. Through various discussions, activities, and investigations, we also learned that food webs can be severely impacted by naturally occurring events, such as Red Tide.
Upcoming Events
*Tuesday, September 23rd--No School
*Friday, September 26th --Fun run
*Thursday, October 2--No School
*Friday, October 3--No School
Friendly Reminders
**Please have your child charge his or her iPad every evening. Much of what we do throughout the day revolves around our iPads.
**Please remember to send your child with a healthy snack each day. Nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!
**Please continue to have your child practice their multiplication facts up to 12.
Have a wonderful week!
Enzie Pangilinan
