Week 19 - January 26, 2018

Curriculum

Reading

This week, we focused on habits 5, 6, and 7 - Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood, Synergize, and Sharpen the Saw.  Next week, we will learn about the 8th habit - Find Your Voice.  Please continue to encourage your children to think about these habits in their daily life.  Next week, we will also explore character traits in our reading.  We will be reading about influential people in our history and then we will try to describe them using character traits.  In addition, we will explore the long i sound.

Book Baggies:
Students have 6 books in their bag (two below their reading level to help them work on fluency, two at their level to focus on good reading skills, and two above level to continue to push and grow as readers).  These bags will stay at home all week for students to practice reading.  It is good to encourage reading and rereading of these books!  We will exchange books on Fridays, so please have students return these books next Friday.  (Just FYI, Library books are sent in on Thursday.)  If a student forgets or is absent one week, they will need to return them the following Friday. 

Writing
Next week, students will continue to write their own how to books on building a snowman.  They are encouraged to include transition words, write detailed specific steps, numbered steps, and more. 

Math
This week, students learned to balance equations and decide if equations were true or false.  Next week, we will work on solving comparison number stories.

Unit 5 Skills
o I can use a number grid to find 10 more and 10 less than a number.
o I can identify true and false addition and subtraction number sentences within 10.
o I can identify 2-digit numbers represented by base-10 blocks.
o I can use <, >, and = to compare numbers.
o I can answer questions about data in a tally chart or bar graph.
o I can measure a path using base-10 cubes.

Unit 5 Study Guide - You may use this to guide you in helping your child study for this Unit 5 Assessment.

Unit 5 IXL Skills - If you would like to, students may use IXL to help them practice these skills.

Social Studies/Science
Students did a wonderful job spreading kindness this month.  This all came out of our unit on families.  Next week, we will begin our science unit on weather and seasons in Michigan.  Students will explore why we have the seasons, different types of weather that we encounter in the different seasons, tools we use to measure different parts of the weather, etc.  This will be a very big unit for us!

Purposeful Play
Students are really enjoying the opportunity to be creative and use their imagination.  I enjoy seeing the problem solving and collaboration that happens. Ask your child what he or she created!

Please see the Purposeful Play tab on the blog to learn more about our weekly Play Time and donation items we could use for it!

Homework

• Read every night
• Work on a math skill (i.e. adding and subtracting to 20 - play a board game for this, telling time, counting coins, measuring - length and volume -  have your child cook with you to practice this, talk about shapes - 2D and 3D - find items around your house, etc.) 
• January Homework - This is all "Play based" to encourage the students build fine/gross motor skills, creativity and imaginative skills.

Important Dates

January 31 - Multicultural Night (6-8 PM)
February 2 - Report Cards are accessible
February 19-20 - Midwinter break - No School
March 30 - Good Friday - No School
April 2-6 - Spring Break - No School
May 18 - PBL Presentation (AM) - more information to come, Celebration of Learning (PM)
May 28 - Memorial Day - No School
June 15 - Last Day of School - 1/2 Day (12:30 dismissal)