Hi everyone! What a great first week of school last week! I am so proud of the entire class for being ready to work hard and give their best effort in class. I have enjoyed getting to know all of my students, and I am thrilled to see their love of learning! The kids have already been showing that they “R.O.C.K.!” (showing the characteristics of being responsible, showing ownership, being considerate, and displaying kindness). They have been very kind to each other, as well as to me. Our class is awesome! I’m looking forward to an awesome year!!
**Important Announcements for the Week**
*Extra supplies: If your child hasn’t already done so, please have your child bring in an art smock (old t-shirt) for Art class, as well as an old sock to use as an eraser when we use dry-erase markers. Please write your child’s name on both the smock and the sock. If you know your child still needs to bring in any other school supplies, thank you for sending those in as well.
*Back to School Night: Back to School Night will be next Thursday evening, Sept. 20th. Your children will have some things for your to see! I hope to see you on Thursday night!
*Half-Day of School on Sept. 19th: Please note that Wednesday, Sept. 19th will be a half day of school, with dismissal beginning around 11:35 am. Your child already brought home 2 purple forms regarding dismissal that day. If your child will be going home a different way than they normally do, please complete the small purple form. You do not have to send back the note if your child is going home their normal Wednesday way. The other form that was sent home is about a “Grab and Go” lunch for the 1/2 day. If you would like to purchase a lunch for your child to take home on Wednesday, please return that form asap.
*Gifted Information Meeting for Parents: Our school will hold a Gifted Identification Information Session for families on Wednesday, 9/26 at 9:00 am in the cafeteria.
**What Are We Learning This Week?**
*Language Arts: This week we will begin our Word Study pretests, and I will use the results to determine your child’s word study level for our weekly words. Word study homework and tests will not start this week because I will need to analyze the data to make the groups. This week we will also begin learning about reading strategies. To begin, we will spend a lot of time learning the procedures for our literacy rotations and the expectations that I have during our small group reading time. As the students work at the table with me in our small reading groups, the rest of the class will work independently throughout the rest of the room. The first reading skill this week will focus on identifying the problem and solution in a fictional story. We will analyze different picture books and short texts this week to identify the problem and the solution. Later in the week, we will again use fiction stories to work with the skill of making predictions. We will discuss what it means to make a prediction, and then read more of the story and then revise our predictions. Finally, as the story concludes, we will discuss what it means to confirm our predictions. As you read with your child at home, please practice these skills of making, revising, and confirming predictions. At the end of the week, I will give the students a short reading comprehension assessment.
*Math: On Monday, we will finish up our short unit on graphs. We will review the differences between bar and line graphs, and the class will complete a short classwork grade on graphs. After graphs, we will being our unit on Place Value and Number Sense. We will learn the place of a digit up through the hundred millions place. Then we will learn how to determine the value of a digit in a number. Other skills in this unit will include comparing and ordering numbers, rounding numbers, and how to identify the standard, written, and expanded form of numbers.
*Social Studies: The class will take the Continents and Oceans Quiz on Tuesday 9/11. Students will need to be able to identify the location of each continent and ocean on a world map. Later in the week, students will get back into small groups with a Virginia map and discover some new landmarks on the map. We will continue with learning about the geography of VA (VS.2abc notes). We will learn about the 4 major rivers in the state that flow into the Chesapeake Bay, as well as some major cities that developed along each of these major rivers. I will also be teaching the class two new mnemonic devices to remember the order of the rivers and which city is on each river. Students will have this information in their Social Studies Notebook to help them study. Students will also complete a classwork grade on VS.2b and VS.2c this week. Thank you for encouraging your child to study their notes a little bit each day.
*Science: This week we will really get started on our Scientific Investigations Unit (SOL 4.1). We will be completing the “Suds Lab” this week, because we just didn’t have time to complete it last week! As we complete the lab in class, I will introduce many important vocabulary terms to the students. Our scientific method unit has a lot of new vocabulary words associated with it and it will be very important that they study nightly. This week we will begin learning the unit’s vocabulary terms a few at a time. We will be creating flashcards in class for each of the words. As we discuss each word, we will connect it to the “Suds Lab” that we did in class. The goal for the vocabulary words is that your child understands the word and its meaning and is able to explain the meaning. not just memorize and restate the definition. We will work on the vocabulary terms all week, and will complete additional labs throughout the unit to work on applying these new terms in context with real-world science! The students always enjoy doing these experiments in class!
Have a great week, everyone!
-Mrs. Jacobsen