The Weekly Update #11

Dear Families,

Thank you so much to all of you for our Halloween party! A special thank you to Mrs Johnson and Ms. Barrington for being our room moms and organizing a great party for the kids. The kids had a wonderful time!! Thank you!!

Reminders

Nov 1: Daylight Saving: Fall back 1 hour

Nov 6: No school for students: PD day for teachers

Nov 11: Veteran's Breakfast 7:30 AM

Nov 23-27: Thanksgiving Break: No School

Homework:

Reading: Packets are given every Friday and due the following Friday.

Independent Reading: Students should read at least 10-20 minutes an evening or 60 minutes a week. Student reading logs are due every Friday.

Math: Please practice multiplication with your child. They can practice using Thatquiz.org or just using flash cards are great ways to gain mastery.

Students will also continue to have math practice 3-4 nights a week.

Here is a brief look at our learning targets and what we did this past week:

Learning Targets:

I can read fluently and comprehend fiction and nonfiction texts.

I can recognize the main idea and key details from a text.

I can research and take notes.

I can write an informative report on topics that I research.

I can write in complete sentences consistently.

I can accurately multiply and use area models with multiple digits.

I can learn and understand about ancient people in Colorado.

I can learn and understand about the internal and external parts of plants and animals.

I can learn and understand how plants and animals adapt to survive in their environment.

Social Skills: Students looked at the value of accepting feedback. This is a difficult skill, but the kids had some great insights and positive thoughts. They also are getting better at setting personal learning goals for themselves. This is awesome!

Reading: Students have started to finish their guided reading book groups. As they complete these books, we will be cycling back to small nonfiction chapter books on our science topics. Our first nonfiction book will be on extreme animals.

Students worked on their Wonders readings about spiders and we worked on recognizing the main idea and key details of a text.

Writing: Students began our Colorado animal research projects. Each student chose a Colorado animal to research. We will be creating a multimedia report using nonfiction text features. This week we worked on gathering some initial notes, looked at example writing pieces, and did one rough draft paragraph.

We also practiced some timed reading response paragraphs this week. Students are working on using writing structures to be able to fluently write a paragraph within 15 minutes. This practice helps build fluent writers as the expectation builds for the kids to write multi-paragraph pieces.

Math: Students continued this week practicing multiple digit multiplication. They are doing a great job applying partial products to an area model to solve two digit by two digit problems. They are also getting faster at solving using the standard algorithm for multiplication too. Keep up the great work kids!

Thank you to all of you for encouraging their multiplication work at home. It truly makes a difference!

Social Studies:

Students completed their posters about ancient peoples. Next week we will learn a bit more about the Anasazi and Mesa Verde.

Science: This week we had some fun learning activities and videos. Kids learned about barn owls. We learned about their habitat, diet and were even able to dissect owl pellets this week! The kids loved this! They also are learning more about lab reports and how to report out their findings. This is always a bit challenging, but I was really proud of the kids for persevering through this. We will finish lab reports and an adaptation exercise on Monday before beginning our next animal study and lab.

Thank you again to all of you for your support and encouragement of your children both in our fun celebrations and in their learning.

Best wishes and a happy Halloween to you all,

Hope Crawley