Our Just Right books are getting harder and the word patterns are falling away. Word patterns are like training wheels, but now we have graduated! Sometimes it can be overwhelming to read a page with a lot of non-patterned texts. Do we give up? No! We "Super Size" our picture power, looking MORE carefully at what is going on. Then we preview the text for sight words. Finally we're ready to tackle the reading, and it's much easier than we thought! It may be a bit bumpy at first read, but just like riding a bike, the more we read a text, the smoother it becomes.
We are writing All About books in Writing Workshop. We are learning how an All About is different from a How To book. It doesn't give directions step by step, but teaches all about a topic. Writers choose a topic about which they are experts, try it on to see if it fits and plan what they may say in advance.
We played a game this week called "Perfect Partner Makes 10", which is an algebra game! Students received a card with dots on it and had to think how many more dots (X) they needed to total ten. Once a student figured out the missing number, s/he had to go find the friend that had it! We had a lot of fun with this.
In phonics this week, we had a lot of fun with Dr. Seuss' rhymes. We continued tapping out sounds in words, writing sentences with sight words, and trying to spell words with three easy sounds (cat, pig, dot, etc.).
We finished our science unit on matter with a week long study of sink vs. float. We tested items to see which would sink and float and discussed what made the difference. Was it size? Was it the material from which it was made? Did weight matter? Ask your child about the many experiments we did.
Dr. Seuss wasn't our only social studies this week, we also got ready for March! We changed over the calendar together and discussed what March will bring. Will it come in like a lion and out like a lamb? We discussed what this means and then made lion and lamb crafts.
News and Notes:
- Please check the email sent to review your March conference time
- Book sleeves due Monday
- We're taking a FIELD TRIP next Friday! Look for an email coming home next Monday
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| Our Silly Socks! |
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| Reading Seuss with friends |
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| Twin Tuesday! Reading with our 5th Grade Buddies |
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| One of our experiments this week |
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| Gathering February's weather data |
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| Our Crazy Hats |
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| The results of our data collection |
