Week 20 & 21

The Burlington Science Center presented and amazing interactive show titled, Our Trash, Our Choice

Students throughout Burlington schools are being asked to think about how our choices can help make a difference.

We were taught to sort food waste, recycling and trash.

The students have been motivated to reduce the amount of trash Memorial school disposes of daily.
We are tracking the weight of our waste and are exploring the idea of a school compost.
Awareness has already helped to reduce trash by 22 lbs.

Scientific experimentation is all the buzz in room 177. We are learning about weather, patterns in seasonal weather and the benefit of forecasting weather.
 

Ask you child about our cloud experiment. 

Important Mentor text:

Comprehension Objectives: 

• main ideas and details, 
• extracting fact from fiction,
• review story summary 
• text to text connections

Phonics: 

• Review digraphs, sh, ch, th, wh 
• Listening for the two letter blends, (cl, cr, st, bl, br, tr, dr)  
• Writing uppercase letter S, T, U and V
• Writing a sentence with upper and lowercase letters, spaces between words, and punctuation.

Writing: 

• We finished a unit on writing to explain. Wait until you see the final projects. 

Math:

• Composing numbers through ten (part, part, whole)
• Decomposing numbers through ten ( whole is equal to the parts)
• Using base ten to understand the pattern in teen numbers. 
• Subtraction fluency, Thanks for all of your help with addition facts. 

Science: 

• Weather and the purpose of predicting and tracking patterns
• Weather for each season
• Scientific method: experimentation, questioning, and researching for answers

Guiding Questions:

Why do we look at weather forecasts?

How can the temperature effect the weather?

What makes a rainbow?

What's 3 and ten more, 4 and ten more, 5 and ten more etc.? ...

Tell about your favorite season. What are some activities you can do during that season? 

Which Dr. Seuss character do you like best? Why? 

Week 19

Read Across America Day was lots of fun!

We celebrated by honoring the famous author Dr. Seuss. Although students have been selecting books from the classroom's collection of Seuss classics, I saved a few of my favorites for read alouds. The Sneeches, Horton Hatches an Egg and The Lorax are stories about unforgettable characters that we can learn from and have fun describing.  Fortunately, we were able to extend our community helpers theme to the librarian in his honor.
Community helper discussions were focused on librarians and nurses. We continue to use adjectives to describe, character traits and tools used by each.

Phonemic Awareness:

• Listing for medial sounds in cvc words.
• Sorting beginning blends, (sl, sp, sk, fl, gl ) 

Phonics: 

• Letter formation for uppercase letters Qu, &  R. 
• Writing a dictated sentence, (uppercase letter to start and lowercase letters throughout, spaces between words and punctuation)

Comprehension: 

• Review story maps for retelling
• Using vocabulary from the text to ask and answer questions

Writing: 

This is week two of our until on writing to inform. The children are working with peers to research a topic of their choice. They are in the process of creating a poster and collaborating on a script in order to create "how to videos". They should be finished by the end of next week.  If you do not want your child's video published on the web page or on the Memorial Web sight please let me know. 

Math: 

• decomposing the numbers 4-9
• addition and subtraction symbols. 

Social Studies:  

• President's Day 
• Presidential election
• What it means to vote

Reminders: 

Please return small guided reading books daily

Return Discovery museum permission slips

Sight Words solders should be returned weekly for a check in and new words added

Please sign up for a parent teacher conference (schedule will be sent out next week).