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!