Just 3 weeks until the Winter Break and so much to do! Please remind your child about the importance of doing their homework. This week we had 7 students who failed to do their required reading of 120 minutes. This is not acceptable and the reading is a non-negotiable per Mrs. Graves. I am giving the students latitude on how they read: 30 minutes a night Mon-Thurs, 60 min twice between Mon and Thurs, or 2 hours in one night; I do not care as long as it totals 120 minutes from Monday to Thursday. The reading logs are to be completely filled in and this is not happening. We are near the midway point of the year and the excuses are not acceptable; the students must become responsible. Likewise, there were multiple students who did not do their 20 points of spelling activities; again, they are given 4 nights in which to complete this task and the excuses are simply not acceptable. This week we will resume with Lesson 12 in our Wordly Wise and so the Wordly Wise homework will return. Please stress to your child, as I am doing in class, the importance of being a responsible student. Good work and good study habits are essential as we prepare for middle school and beyond.
We have begun to organize our information as we begin with the first section of our Explorer project, which is the biography. Information such as the birth/death, family, childhood, and their early adult years will be included as students learn how to take notes and organize their information.
Other learning this week is:
Math- On Monday we will review for the Unit 4 test. Please help your child study by going over the review at home on Monday night. The end of unit exam will be on Tuesday. We begin Unit 5 with extended multiplication facts.
Reading- In reading next week our focus will be on context clues. This is a very important skill to have because if a child can understand the meaning of difficult or unfamiliar words by using context clues, then it helps with their comprehension. We will spend a lot of time looking at difficult or unfamiliar words and will teach several ways to use context clues to understand their meanings.
Writing- We are continuing with our expository writing. Our focus next week is to teach students not to simply list their details underneath their main ideas. We are going to teach them how to take that list and elaborate on the details, which will in turn make a stronger, more supported, piece.
Social Studies- The students are working hard to get their notefacts about their chosen explorer written down. Our goal is to have all of the notefacts written by Wednesday, the 7th so that the students can begin rewriting notefacts in their own words and organizing them so they can write their paper.
We are also studying the regions of Texas next week and what types of landmarks, land, and resources are found in each region.
Science- We had so much fun learning about adaptations last week and letting the students camouflage the butterflies and hide them from us. We are still searching for them! Next week we will look at the difference between learned behaviors and inherited traits. There will be a quiz on this at the end of the week.
