Happy Presidents’ Day, No School on Monday!
Basketball players, don’t forget Team Spirit Tuesday. Please wear your jersey, jeans, white tennis shoes, and white socks.
Religion: Chapter 21: This week we continue to talk about the Mass. We will discuss how to participate more fully in the Mass through our responses, our song, and our prayers. We will also learn the names of the various vessels and objects used in the Church and at Mass. Two students made an Animoto on sacramentals for the other students to view.
Social Studies: Take home kits will come home this week! Finally this is TRUE. I found all of the parts I needed. Hooray!!!
Grammar: The students typed their persuasive writing papers. Now, we will work on making them even better.
Multiplication: We will take our timed test on the six facts on Tuesday. This week the students will learn the eight facts. Daily timed practice tests will be sent home on Monday. Please have your child work on speed and accuracy at home. The completed timed-test page is due the following Monday. Please record the time for each column.
Math: We will continue learn about parallel lines, intersecting lines, rays, line segments, and points. We will also learn about geometric shapes and what congruent means. I will continue to work with small groups of students to teach them how to multiply 2 and 3 digit numbers by a one digit number. Some students will move on to the challenge of multiplying two digits by two digits. Some students are very excited about this. I cannot stress the importance of knowing the multiplication facts enough. Math Assessment 20 will be given on Wednesday.
Science: This week we will mine for minerals – at least we will mine for cancy pieces in cookies! We will learn where most of Earth’s resources are located, what renewable, reuseable, and nonrenewable mean, and we will give examples of resources that fall in each category. The students will discuss why it is important to take care of the Earth and what they can do to help.
Reading and Spelling: This week we will read “Earth: Our Planet in Space.” The students will not have an assessment on this story. The information will be used to prepare for our upcoming science project.
Spelling: This week we will work on the 100 most used words in the English language. The students will take a pretest and then work on the words that they missed. There is a video clip at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oDhRx9_5Nk This link may be helpful for students who prefer to see the words. The video is by no means exciting, but it does provide the pronunciation and shows the word spelled correctly. We will try some new techniques to help the students learn and retain the words.
Book Adventure: The new contest has begun! As always, students earning 500 points or more will enjoy a PJ and popcorn party. The top three readers will also receive individual prizes. The contest name is “We Need to Read” and the code is WD311. Please remember that meeting reading goals is a test grade for this quarter.
We will continue to take comprehension quizzes. These quizzes are on passages that the students have not seen before, but are written at a third grade level. The quizzes are being recorded as classwork grades and will count as 30% of your child’s grade. Please encourage your child to read carefully, look back in the story for answers, eliminate erroneous answers, and to read all of the choices before selecting an answer.
