4/20 - 4/24

Welcome to a new week!  Here's what we will be up to:

MATH:  We will be working on understanding and telling time to the half-hour, using both the language two-thirty (2:30) and half past 2 o'clock.  Please practice both ways at home.  We build our understanding upon the minute-hand moving half-way around the clock to point to the 6, and today we counted the minutes it took to do that (30 minutes).  As the minute-hand does that, the hour-hand also moves half-way between the hours.   We will also work on elapsed time, or understanding how much time passes from one point to another.

WRITING WORKSHOP:  We are wrapping up our unit of Author's Craft.  This week, we work on adding ellipsis (or "dot, dot, dot") into our pieces to build suspense.  We will also work on crafting interesting leads and endings.  Then, it's on to "fixing and fancying" up!  With this piece, we will place a lot of emphasis on editing for proper capitalization and punctuation.

READING WORKSHOP:  We are finishing up our study of characters this week!  Today we spent some time noticing how character's feelings change throughout the story.  We will also explore how characters encounter problems in the story and the solutions they use to solve them.  Bring these topics into your discussions as you read at home this week! :)

WORD STUDY:  A new sort came home today.  Keep practicing! :)  This week in our classroom we will also learn the difference between common and proper nouns.  We will practice writing proper nouns with a beginning capital letter.

SCIENCE/SOCIAL STUDIES:  This week, we will build upon our understanding of the 3 Rs and do a few Earth Day projects.  Check out the bulletin board outside our room later this week :)  We will also begin to explore our next science unit - States of Matter.

Important Dates/Announcements:
*EARTH WEEK! See email flyer from last week for details.
*We are in need of Dolch Word Volunteers this week!  If you can help out, please click here to sign up.  Thank you for your support!
*Wednesday, April 29th: DELAYED START - School begins at 10:19 am.