March-ing into April

Students finished up March with a lot of enthusiam and did some really amazing learning. Here are a few highlights from the week:

Reading: Unit 9 of Siperkids focuses on the vowel teams. Students learned the rule: "two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking." This means when students see the double vowel pattern (cvvc) in a word (ee, ea, ae, oa, ie, ue, ai), most of the time, the sound these vowels create is the first one's long vowel sound. Example sinclude: snail, peach, bee, pie, boat and blue. Students are practicing the memory words: could, would, some, one, were and new. 

and emotions in their writing as a way of telling more about their character and adding details. They are working on adding quatation marks and adding dialogue as well.

Math: In math students are taking a second look at place value, but this time in a more conceptual way rather than learning place value by the position of numbers. Students are breaking apart numbers into groups of 1's, 10's, 100's and 1000's and writing numbers in expanded form. Students are working towards being able to add and subtract two two-digit or three-digit numbers.

Science:Students continue to learn about sound. Students read about sound and explored how sound travels through waves and solids by exploring paper cup telephones. Students also learned about nutrition with a visit from UMASS students. They learned about how to "balance" their plate.

Reminders:

• Keep reading at home and don't forget to turn in your child's reading log every Monday.
• April 7th is our Storybook Character dress-up day. Your child can dress as a book character of his/her choice. If you need help with a costume or parts of a costume, let me know. And if you would like to send a treat with your child to share with the class that day, you are more than welcome to.

Sound and Time

Spring fever has hit, and I do mean that literally. The start of this week was rough for a bunch of us in room 4, but hopefully warmer days will bring better health. As much as I am not a fan of cold weather, I am thankful that Crocker Farm gets the students outside for fresh air even on the coldest snowy days, and as the weather turns the corner, I look forward to spending even more time outside.

In reading, students have wrapped up units 7 and 8 of Superkids and completed another assessment. Students are doing a great job reading and starting to get the CVC and CVCE long and short vowel patterns. Students are working on decoding words with -ing, -ed, and -es endings and knowing when it is a long or short vowel sound when reading (tapping is a short /a/ because of the double consonant, while taping has a long /a/ because of the single consonant before the -ing ending). Next unit we will look at the CVVC pattern, with the vowel pairs. Students are responding in writing to their reading and I encourage them to use their neatest handwriting, and not to forget to capitalize and use punctuation. Please continue to praise their efforts at home when they write. 

In writing students wrapped up their realistic fiction stories, where students outline a story, using the "Story Grammar Marker" format. Students created a character, setting, problem, story events and then a solution with an ending. Students also worked on writing a lead for their story and adding details. Students have started a new science unit on sound and light, where students will continue to work on their writing skills. Students have started to look at sound this week and sound as vibration and waves. Students will continue to explore sound next week.

I math students have wrapped up unit 8. They learned about 2-D and 3-D shapes and their attributes. As students continued to look at geometry, we learned about equal and unequal shares, or dividing shapes. From there we started to build their basic understanding of fractions, looking at halves (1/2) and quarters (1/4). The last part of this unit, students learned about the clock and telling time to the hour and half hour: hour-1:00, 2:00, 3:00... and half hour: 1:30, 2:30, 3:30....

Your kids are growing so much! I am so proud of them and I am so excited about all their progress. I hope you are too! Keep up the reading at home and have a great weekend! 

Book Dress-Up Day

Book Dress-UP Day

   Friday, April 7th

Hi Room 4 Families! Students chose a prize for filling up their CARE behavior jar with pom-poms. Students voted and there was a tie between "a treat" and "a book character dress-up day". So, we are going to do a character dress-up day on April 7^th and if you child would like to bring a treat to share with the class, you are welcome to do so on this day. Please keep it nut and mango free. If your child chooses to participate, please send your child dressed as his/her favorite (or any) character from a book. If your child would like to bring their book in too, they are encouraged to do so. Some examples might be: One of the 3 pigs, Fancy Nancy, Harry Potter, Goldilocks, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (Jack and the Bean Stalk), Max (Where the Wild Things Are), Charlie Brown, any of the Dr. Seuss Characters, Madeline, Where’s Waldo, Willy Wonka, Angelina Ballerina …

If you need help putting a costume together, please let me know and I will try and help. Please do not feel that you need to buy a costume for this. I encourage your student to help with making the costume or using what you have around the house. Some costumes are easier to piece together than others! If you have any questions, please feel free to email me: prattl@arps.org or give me a call. I encourage your child to participate, as it can help get students excited about books and reading!

C'mon Spring!

Spring starts next week! Or does it? Fingers crossed. Here are the latest updates on learning and growing we are seeing in room 4:

In math students have been working on building and decomposing 2-D and 3-D shapes. Last week students reviewed and learned 2-D and 3-D shapes and their attributes and this week we took it a step farther, where students composed composite shapes by putting 2-D shapes together to make new shapes or building with 3-D shapes to make 3-D structures and new forms. This geometry unit is a lot of fun for students because it is so hands on.

In reading students continue to look at the CVCe pattern and the long and short vowels. Students are learning how to as endings to these words such as -ing, -ed and -s/-es. They have learning that you drp the e when adding -ed and -ing to the ending and just add an s (rather than adding another e)Students have been practicing scooping syllables and as part of our reading comprehension curriculum, students have been working on inferring and visualizing. When you read with your child at home, please continue to work on these skills.

For our writing, students continue to work on their realistic fiction stories and are expected to complete their first story by next week. Students will then write a "sequel" or a another book with the same character, as a series. We have wrapped up our unit on American symbols and will be starting a light and sound science unit next week.

We had a fun "St. Patrick's Day" visit from Mr. Shea to teach us about his family and some Celtic traditions. Mr. Shea is Scottish but his family is originally from Ireland. The students enjoyed his read aloud.

Thank you for the recent snack contributions to our classroom! We welcome any more contributions and we continue to move through the year. 

WISH LIST:

2-3 bottles for project: http://www.joann.com/lumi-inkodye-bottle-8-oz/zprd_13270749a.html#q=inkodye&start=4

Snack


Have agreat weekend! And here is a fun idea to help the environment and welcome spring:

http://www.cheerios.com/bringbackthebees/form

Read Across America & Superkids Day 2017

Hi Families! This week, in Room 4, was a busy one:

We kicked off the week with Read Across America, where students celebrated reading and Dr. Seuss. Students created Thing 1 and Thing 2 hats with their third grade reading buddies in Ms. Joyce class. Students had the opportunity to sit with their buddies at the assembly. The Read Across America Assembly was a lot of fun! There were teachers and staff dressed as Dr. Seuss characters and characters from Harry Potter. Students, as an entire school, spent 5 minutes reading quietly to themselves. You should definitely ask your child about it!

Today, Friday, we had our third annual Superkids Day. Students had an exciting day filled with hands-on center activities and games. Many of the students and teachers dressed as one of the Superkids and it was neat to see some of the creative costumes. Thank you for all your reading support at home. We have so many super kids in room 4.

In addition to these two celebrations students continue to work hard each and every day in math, reading, writing and science/social studies. Here's a quick look at some of our recent learning:

Math: Geometry. Students are learning about 2-D and 3-D shapes and their attributes. Students learned the following concepts and vocabulary: side, vertex, verticies, face, edge, corner. Students also learned about open and closed shapes.

Reading: Students learned about the possesive, plural and continued to decode and encode words following the consonant-vowel-consonent-e (cvce) pattern. We know that the vowel is long when it follows this syllable pattern. Students also praticed inferring during our comprehension toolkit lesson and practiced finding clues and making inferences. For this skill students practiced with poems as well as pixar short clips.

Writing: Students completed a pre-write exercise last week for their realistic fiction story. This pre-write will help guide instruction for the realistic fiction  unit that we are currently working on. Students have been working through a packet to build the story elements, such as character traits (internal and external), setting, problem, story events and the solution. We have been working more with story grammar marker and connecting our writing to this story retelling tool.

Social Studies: We continue to learn about US symbols and monuments. Students read a book about the American Eagle and wrote and did an illustration of the symbol. Students also read a story about the first American flag and how it was made. We are also learning about the liberty bell.

Thank you for all the reading you are doing at home! And as a final note: We are very low on snack and would love any donations. If you are willing and able, it would be greatly appreciated! Have a great weekend!

HIP-HIP-HOORAY FOR SUPERKIDS DAY!

I hope everyone had a great break! It seems like Spring is finally on it's way. March is a long month and because of this we have planned our annual Superkids Day for March 10th. If your child would like he/she may dress up as a Superkid of his/her choice. The day will filled with activities and games tied to Superkids. The day will not look like the Superkids day that your child participated in when he/she was in kindergarten but it will still have some centers and fun activities. Let me know if you have any questions.

We are also down to almost no snack as an extra snack for students who forget to bring it. If you would be willing to donate a nut-free snack, we'd really appreciate it!