May 15 - 19

Bike Safety Week

We had a great time during "Bike Safety" week. Thanks so much to Mr. Larson and the volunteers for setting up the weekly activities and bike courses each day. The students had a great time and learned so much about being safe on their bikes. Also, thank you parents for taking the time to drop off and pick up the bikes during the week.

Language Arts

The students are thoroughly enjoying the Charlotte's Web novel study. We tune into 4-5 interesting words each chapter to expand the students vocabulary. When children learn to tune in to interesting words, they build word awareness and the understanding of words. This leaves them with “thinking power” in their brain to comprehend and make meaning of what is read. Students who tune in to interesting words expand their vocabulary by focusing on these new words and their meaning. By looking for words that are interesting and unique, children not only increase their vocabulary, but they also enhance their comprehension. A child must have multiple exposures to a word in order for it to become a part of his/her vocabulary.

Making Words - the students enjoyed making words and trying to figure out the mystery word "sunflowers."

This week we began our Daily Language Review to replace the weekly spelling program. This is a quick 10 minute morning activity that includes:

• Grammar and usage
• Capitalization, punctuation, and spelling
• Vocabulary word meaning and relationships
• Acquired vocabulary (e.g., using conjunctions to show relationships)

The students were busy this week typing up and illustrating their All About Me paragraphs.

 

Math

This week in math we covered the following curricular goals:

- Choosing Units - deciding on the most appropriate unit to measure length or distance and comparing measurements in different units.

Science

Our "Painted Lady" caterpillars have arrived! As part of our Life Cycle unit in science, the students have the opportunity to witness the life cycle of painted lady butterflies in our classroom! The caterpillars (larvae) arrived on Thursday. Each day the students will be writing in their butterfly life cycle journals to document the changes that are occurring.

We also planted sunflowers as part of our life cycles unit.

Social

The students are just finishing up the good copies of their Ukraine Travel Brochure.  Using their jot notes, they created a brochure to entice travelers to want to visit the Ukraine.