Week 5 - September 24-28

Welcome to Week 5. Our greeting of the week is Guten Tag, from Germany. The week's word of the week in Spanish was chosen by Victoria, and is, catarata -- which means waterfall.

This week the students will be reviewing all spelling and vocabulary words, which you will find on the back of the Homework Record Sheet. I will be testing up to ten review words that they missed on today's pretest. Any student who has mastered all words can have a break from spelling this week and do some extra reading each day for homework.

By now you should have received an email regarding the conference time you signed up for.  If you need to reschedule your time, please contact me to so we can arrange another time to meet.
There will be no school on conference day, Thursday, October 4th.

The students completed their first math assessment last Friday, and I will be sending these home this week. Please review this, sign and send it back to school. If you would like me to make you a copy, just let me know.

The students have been enjoying using the ipads in class and will continue learning to use different applications to enhance their learning in math and spelling this week. A favorite at the moment is an app called Rush Hour - a sliding block puzzle game that promotes problem solving and critical thinking skills. 

The students have been having fun practicing for the second grade show. We will focus on practicing the Europe poem this week, reviewing The Seven Continents and South American poems. The students seem to be a very creative and musical group. Last week I taught them the Kerry Dance, which has some very basic elements of Irish dance in it. They were quick at picking up the steps and words.

Here is an outline of curriculum content for the week. The students will continue presenting their Current Events and our Parent Reader is Claire's mom (Jill E.). 

Literacy

* Phonics, spelling and vocabulary review
* Reading: A Chair for My Mother, by Vera Williams
* Reading Workshop - Readers help themselves understand the story by figuring out the author's purpose; Partners show respect for their reading time together by following the procedures of partner time (sitting hip to hip, using one book at a time, using quiet voices); Partners can help each other read with smooth voices by echoing reading.
* Writing Workshop - Small Moment Writing - Taking a small moment and stretching it across page; adding interesting details
* Grammar Review - Sentence structure
* Handwriting - Center Starting Capitals (C, O, Q, G, S, A, I, T, J); Capital review and number practice (1-10)

Math - Unit 2 -Addition and Subtraction Facts

* Make up, represent and solve addition number stories
* Review easy addition facts like +0, +1, +1, +2, +3
* Double facts
* Turn-Around Facts and the +9 shortcut

Social Studies - North America

* North American Landmark research and project work

Science - Lesson 3 - Where Did the Water Go?

Students discuss how the water in the petri dishes has changed since last lesson; they discuss where they think the water in the uncovered petri dishes has gone; students will set up an investigation of evaporation and condensation and read about changes in the state of water.

Have a wonderful week -

Ms. O'Mullane