What's Happening in Room 34...

Things You Should Know...

• Our rescheduled parent-teacher conference is this Thursday!  Please confirm your scheduled time here.

• To help prepare for the parent-teacher conference, please take a few minutes to complete this questionnaire.

• The students will be bringing home a note tomorrow regarding Valentine's Day boxes that they will create and bring in for our Valentine exchange.  Please make sure to take a look at it.  On the back, you will find a list of all the students in our class for the exchange.  Once again, we ask that the cards contain no candy.  They may include a small trinket if you and your child wish. 

• Your child is collecting spelling words in his/her notebook.  These words are words your child does not know how to spell in their everyday writing.  Feel free to jot down words for your child to add to his/her list.  After they spend about 2 weeks collecting words, I will share more information on how they will be used.

Our Week:

             Wednesday:  Early Release/Buddy activity 
             Thursday:  Conferences
             Friday:  Counselor's Day
                           Mid-Quarter Reports coming home
           
What's Going on in Our Classroom...

Reader's Workshop:

• The students will use what they have learned about text structures to identify them in nonfiction material. The students will be assessed on text structures this week after reviewing them on Monday and Tuesday.  

• Our next topic for our nonfiction reading unit is main idea.  The students will learn how to find the main idea of a given passage.

Writer's Workshop:

• The students have committed to their topic for their informational writing piece!  They came up with their subtopics, and we will begin researching this week!  We will first take time learning how to paraphrase our research while learning about plagiarism.

Math:

• The students will continue to work with fractions this week.  This week, we are working with comparison word problems.  The students will also be introduced to mixed numbers (a whole number with a fraction:  5 3/4).  They will learn how to create a model of a mixed number and create an improper fraction from a mixed number (23/4) using a model to support the process. Video Example

Social Studies:

• The students will present their projects on Wednesday.

Science:

• We will begin our next unit on The Scientific Method this week.  The students will participate in a few fun investigations as they learn the process.