Weekly Update, January 28 - February 1

The kids are now 102 days smarter!!! We had such a fun celebration last week. Thank you to all the parents who volunteered their time to help make our day special!

Nature's Treasures
Nature’s Treasures is put on by the 5th and 6th graders and it features a variety of small items available for purchase. Today we visited the Nature’s Treasures shop for a preview day. The kids were able to look at the items for sale and make a wish list. Your child brought home a list of available items today. Our class will visit Nature's Treasures to shop on Friday, February 1. If your child would like to purchase items from the shop, please send the money in a closed and labeled envelope.

This week we are studying the scientific method to prepare a class science project for the science fair! Today we began our own study of science and the kids were already so excited. Mr. Shah came in to talk about his job as a scientist and help us with our experiment for the science fair! Today in guided reading we learned about the steps in the scientific method and we watched two short Brain Pop videos about it. For the rest of the week we will work on our project by completing a different part of the scientific method. Parents - be sure to ask your kids about this neat process!

On Friday, February 1, we will learn about Groundhog Day! The kids will read a story to sequence it and they will also make a cute groundhog hat and bookmark.

In writing we are learning about scientific writing. Our six traits focus is fluency. The kids are practicing re-reading their writing to make sure it makes sense. I have seen dramatic improvements in the kids' writing just since we returned from Winter Break. It is SO exciting!

The kids came home with Rainbow Words and they are due tomorrow. In making words we are working on the "tricky c" (when the "s" sound is heard, but the letter c is written, like in race). We will also find rhymes for various spelling words.

In reading we are working on learning how to tell words with “ou” and “ow” apart.

The kids enjoyed their science/Groundhog theme centers! The centers for the week include:
1. Listening - The kids listened to Wake Up Groundhog and then sequenced the events of the story.
2. Science - The kids made bubbles! A table was lined with black garbage bags and then a water/dish soap mixture was poured on the table. The kids used straws to blow bubbles. This was a lot of fun!
3. Writing - The kids pretended they were mad scientists and they wrote about building their own monsters. They used transition words to write about the steps in building a monster. They came up with some very funny stuff!
4. Math - The kids practiced subtraction patterns with 0 and 1. The also practiced ordering numbers through 100 on a daisy picture.
5. Reading - The kids played a new Spill and Spell game. They dump out a cup with different letters and see how many sight words they can spell before the timer runs out.

In math we are working on data and graphing. This ties in nicely with our work about the scientific method.

We have a fun activity planned for computers this week. If you’d like to see what the kids will do, please check the blog on Friday for the blog posting called “Computers, 2/1.”

Have an A+ week!
Mrs. Johnston and Ms. Klein