Water Cycle Song.

Students have worked hard to understand the water cycle.  We started with an experiment and observed what happened.  We came up with some conclusions and then were able to explain them with the help of informational texts.  Students learned how the water cycle works and are starting to understand these terms:

Evaporation
Water Vapor
Condensation
Precipitation

Check out the catchy song we listened to last week!
LISTEN HERE.

Synonyms / Using a Thesaurus.

Students are learning new and interesting words for many commonly used words.  Words that mean almost the same thing as another word are called Synonyms.  Students practiced using a Thesaurus to find synonyms and they were encouraged to expand their vocabulary by using them.  They are learning that many writers look for and use synonyms to keep their writing interesting.

Since we have been talking a lot about character traits, students were given a simple trait and worked together to find the word and list synonyms for it.  They were excited to learn new words!

Thanksgiving Week.

Remember there is early release on Wednesday, November 26.

We will not have a spelling list this week.

Students will focus on continuing to retell Folktales.  They will be practicing this skill verbally well as cutting and pasting the parts of a story in order. This skill enhances comprehension!

Students will finish up the current math unit on Addition Within 100 this week and continue to practice finding the total of groups of coins.  We will also get together with our 5th grade buddies to share, teach and play math games that extend our learning.

Students will continue to focus on the science topics of weather and forces and motion.  We have been connecting our learning from an experiment with forces and motion to informational writing.  Students chose a topic that involves motion and are working on including vocabulary and connecting the science they've learned. Students will also continue to see how the water cycle works and how the various types of clouds play an important role in understanding weather.

Check out the turkeys we made last week! I love displaying their work in our classroom.  They enjoy seeing the creativity of each other's work.

Money Skills.

Students are learning and reviewing how to sequence coins and count them up.  They have been writing them with dollars and cents. In the computer lab today, we spent some time exploring some games that  focus on these skills.  Some students are struggling to count coins when going from a quarter to a dime or nickel.

Please encourage your child to count change at home and continue to identify and review the amounts. I appreciate your support in working on this important concept.

Try out some games!

Count Money in the Cash Register

Cash Register 2

Sheppard Software

Cool Math $$

Money Math Games

(We have not focused on subtraction and making change yet- students should know to avoid those games)

Character Traits Reading Response.

Students will be bringing home another reading response this week.  It will be due Friday, November 21.  The focus is on character traits.  Students are getting better at identifying traits and providing evidence from the text.  Many students are still getting this mixed up with general feelings.  Please discuss the characters with your child.  Students should be able to provide evidence for their thinking.  To help students become more successful, feel free to give them the character trait but have them give the evidence.  They are still developing the vocabulary for different character traits.

Here are some we have discussed:

greedy, responsible, respectful, anxious, strong, friendly, hardworking, lazy, honest, brave, compassionate, unkind, rude, determined, smart

Please let me know if you have questions.

Retelling.

Students are working on increasing their comprehension by retelling a story.  We will be applying this with our current study of Folk Tales. The retelling format we are using is as follows:

The Characters are...
The Setting is...
The Problem is...
In the beginning...
Then...
Next...
After that ...
Finally...
The solution is...

We are working on identifying the beginning, middle and end of a story.  Students are learning that problem almost always happens somewhere in the middle.  Although we are working on applying this strategy and some of these aspects when writing, this is a verbal skill.  Encourage your child to retell or identify parts of a story after reading.

Character Traits.

We are starting to examine characters, who they are and how they act.  We are learning about traits- not what someone looks like but what is on the inside.  Students are learning to find evidence to support their answer.  Although characters and character traits are in any fiction story, we are learning this concept through Folktales.  Encourage your child to think about the characters in their stories and describe them by identifying a character trait.

Science: Weather and Water.

Students are excited to learn about Weather and the Water Cycle. We are integrating these Science concepts into our Writer's Workshop.  Together we are working on an experiment.  We posed a question about the world, made a hypothesis and set it up.  We learned about the steps in writing a lab report.

1. Ask a question about how the world works.
2. Record your hypothesis.
3. Write the step-by-step procedure and materials.
4. Notice and record observations and results.
5. Write a conclusion.

Here are some of the photos from our experiment. We observed water evaporating, condensation and precipitation. We learned more about the water cycle through books and videos.  We concluded that we need heat from the sun to power the water cycle.  Ask your child about this process.  We are creating diagrams, using poems and learning songs to help us with this learning. Good scientists do some research and learn more about a topic to help them understand their experiments and the results.

 

water condensing on the saran wrap

water evaporating

precipitation in to the small bowl

Inferring.

Students learned a new strategy today.  Inferring means to use schema and clues or evidence in the text/ picture to explain or understand what is happening.  Students played a game called "Guess That Folktale" to practice using the language associated with this strategy.

Example:

picture showed a glass slipper

Student: "My guess is Cinderella because she loses a glass slipper and a prince tries to find the person it belongs to."

Encourage your child to use clues and text evidence when talking about what they read.
Thank you!

The World of Folktales.

We are starting to explore folktales and learning the characteristics of the two types that fall underneath them: Fables and Fairy Tales.  Students are familiar with many but will continue to explore the many stories and versions.  Students will learn how to identify a folk tale and have the opportunity to write their own. We will also be exploring character traits and how they develop or change within a story.