Hi everyone! I hope all of my students had a nice long weekend. It’s such a relief that the Richmond area was not hit hard with the storm as they previously thought. My thoughts go out to everyone being affected by the hurricane. I also wanted to say what a wonderful class I have this year! I am enjoying getting to know them and I am very impressed with their positive behaviors and great effort in class! I know we are going to have a great year!
**Important Announcements for This Week**
*Half-Day of School on Sept. 19th: Please note that this 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.
*MAP Testing: This week we will begin our NWEA MAP tests. The MAP tests stand for “Measures of Academic Progress,” and are personalized assessments adapted to each student’s learning level. Students will take the NWEA MAP tests in the fall and again in the spring. We will use this data to monitor your child’s progress in reading and math. The Reading MAP test is on Thursday, 9/20, and the Math MAP test is on Wednesday, 9/26. Your child does not need to study for these tests. We will begin testing promptly at 8:30 each day, so please have your child arrive to school on time. Thank you!
*Back to School Night: Back to School Night is this Thursday evening, Sept. 20th at 6:30 pm. Your children will have some things for your to see! I hope to see you on Thursday night!
*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.
*Friendly Reminders: If your child hasn’t already done so, please have your child bring in an art smock and an old sock for us to use with dry erase markers. Please write your child’s name on both the smock and the sock. Thanks!
**What Are We Learning This Week?**
*Language Arts – This week we will continue to review the important reading comprehension skills of identifying the problem and solution, as well as making predictions in fiction text. During the remainder of the week we will be reviewing important language concepts, including nouns and verbs. We often discover that students are able to state what a noun and verb are, but they struggle with applying these skills in context, such as identifying these parts of speech in a sentence. This year we will work to be able to apply our knowledge of skills instead of simply restating information. Throughout the week, we will focus on common vs. proper nouns and singular vs. plural nouns, and we will focus what a verb is and how to identify a verb in a sentence. We will also review subject and predicate and how we can use those skills to find a verb in a sentence. During our small group rotations, we will continue to practice “Read to Self” and “Work on Writing.” We won’t start breaking up into small group until we have spent time practicing these routines and understand the expectations for each rotation.
*Math– We will continue our Place Value Unit this week. Topics we will cover this week are comparing and ordering numbers, and rounding numbers. Students will take a short Place Value Quiz on Thursday 9/20 (it will not include rounding questions!). I will teach the class a phrase to help them understand how to round: “5 and above, give it a shove; 4 and below, let it go!” Also, please continue to review the difference between the place of a digit versus the value of a digit. This can be a confusing concept for some students. Students will complete a Rounding Quiz next week. We will have our Place Value Test on Friday, Sept. 28.
*Social Studies – This week we are continuing our Unit on the Geography of Virginia. This week we will learn the products and industries that are found in each region. This is actually the VS.10b section of Virginia Studies, but we include it with the VA Geography unit because it fits in well with that information. Students will complete a short VS.2 Geography Quiz Thursday 9/20, which will cover the 5 regions, 5 bordering states, and bordering waters of VA. Then we will spend some time reviewing all of the content we have learned on Friday. Please encourage your child to study their social studies notes a little bit each night. The VS.2abc/VS.10b Test will be next Tuesday 9/25.
*Science – We will continue our unit on Scientific Investigations this week (SOL 4.1). Students have 20 vocabulary terms in their ziploc bag, and they should be able to use the cards to play a matching game to help them study. I strongly recommend that students play this matching game each night in order to work on learning these important scientific method vocabulary terms. Thank you for your support with this! This week we will continue to work on using our scientific method vocabulary words in context. This week we will complete another experiment in class called “The Great Ketchup Race!” We will be working to determine which temperature ketchup will move the fastest down a plate. Students will complete a lab sheet in class which will be graded. Later in the week we will learn about important science tools and the measurement units used with these tools. We will work through additional lab scenarios and specifically focus on identifying the independent variable, dependent variable, and constants in an experiment. As explained last week, it is so important that your child is able to apply their knowledge of the scientific method vocabulary words instead of simply restate definitions. The students will take their Scientific Method vocabulary quiz next Wednesday, 9/26.
Have a great week, everyone!
-Mrs. Jacobsen