January 30-February 3

"Away in a meadow all covered with snow
The little old groundhog looks for his shadow
The clouds in the sky determine our fate
If winter will leave us all early or late."
-  Don Halley

We had a fabulous start to our week with the last math lesson in Unit 5.  Students decomposed factors to solve challenging multiplication facts.  They will have the last Home Link of this Unit tonight for homework.  We will review for the test tomorrow and students will have a Review Packet for homework as well.  The test will be given on Wednesday.  We will begin Unit 6 on Thursday.  The Family Letter for this unit will go home this afternoon.  Please use it as a reference for strategies, algorithms and homework help.  Students will have the 6.1 Home Link for homework on Thursday night.

Our spelling rule this week involves a Review of Unit 3 (Lessons 13-17).  Students will have a spelling assignment each night for homework.

Report cards came out on Friday.  Please keep your child's report card and STAR reports at home. The gold envelope that they came in needs to be signed and returned to me ASAP.  I'm proud of my students' progress this last quarter.  Thank you for your continued support at home.

Have a wonderful week!  :)

January 23-27

Slow as molasses in January.

We had an exciting morning due to the Patriot's big win last night.  The class was elated!  We can't wait for the Super Bowl!  

Students played Salute during math class this morning.  It's an awesome game that practices multiplication and division facts.  Please ask your child the rules so you can play at home.  Other lessons this week include the use of square products to find products of near squares, making sense of and solving number stories, and decomposing factors to solve multiplication facts.  Students will have a Home Link each night for homework.

Our spelling rule this week involves the suffix endings ed and ing. Students will have a spelling assignment on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.  Please help your child study for his or her test on Thursday night.  

We will continue with our Simple Machine Unit this week.  Students will study the six basic machines and their many uses.  Some of the vocabulary words we are working on include fulcrum, force, load and friction.  Information about our upcoming Simple Machine Project will go home on Tuesday afternoon.  This is an optional activity.  Please contact me with any questions or concerns.

Scholastic book orders are due on January 28th.  Our classroom code is HB244.

Have a fabulous week!  :)

January 17-20

"Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow."  
-  Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

We explored the use of doubling to solve number stories in math this morning.  We will continue to use the doubling strategy tomorrow for Part 2 of our lesson.  Students will identify and explain arithmetic patterns using properties of operations on Thursday.  They will have a Home Link each night for homework.  

Our spelling rule involves more words with long i this week.  Students will have an assignment each night for homework to practice their words.  

Scholastic book orders are due on the 28th.  Our classroom code is HB244.  

Have a great week!  :)

January 9-13

"January is here, with eyes that keenly glow,
A frost-mailed warrior 
striding a shadowy steed of snow." 
-  Edgar Fawcett

We began Unit 5 in math this week.  Students used fraction pictures to name numerators and denominators.  This week they will represent fractions using standard notation, words and drawings.  They will also recognize equivalent fractions using a visual fraction model and solve multiplication problems using helper facts.  They will have a Home Link each night for homework. 

Our spelling rule this week involves words with long i sound.  Students will have a spelling assignment on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings.  Please help your child study on Thursday night for Friday's test.

We began our One School One Book read aloud today.  All students and teachers at LSS will have the opportunity to read Wish by Barbara O'Connor.  Please ask your student how he or she is enjoying the story.  

Scholastic book orders will go home this week.  Orders will be due back by January 27th or please feel free to order online using our classroom code HB244.

Have a wonderful week!  

January 3-6

1. “Be always at War with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each New Year find you, a better person.” – Benjamin Franklin

Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a restful and relaxing vacation.  We began the week by writing two New Year's Resolutions.  Each student made an improvement goal for school and home.  I was very proud of their thoughtful and reflective resolutions.  

We will finish Unit 4 in math this week.  Students designed rabbit pens for my bunny Mister today.  They had to use 24 feet of fencing as the perimeter for each pen.  Their objective was to find the pen with the largest area for Mister to enjoy.  We will discuss their responses tomorrow and work on finding the area of rectilinear figures.  We will review for the test on Thursday and the assessment will be given the following day.  Students will have a Home Link tonight and Wednesday.  A Review packet will go home for Thursday's night's assignment.

Our spelling rule this week involves words with a Short i sound.  Students will have a spelling assignment each night for homework.  

We are running extremely low on disinfectant wipes for the classroom.  We use them to clean desks and tables every single day.  Please consider donating wipes to the classroom.  Thank you! 

Have a wonderful week!  :)