January 29-February 2

"Dead of winter.
Cold hands warm heart.
As pure as snow.
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness.
Now is the winter of our discontent.
Left out in the cold."
-  Clichés for Gardeners  

We began our week with a spelling pretest. Lesson 11 focuses on words with the vowel sound in /joy/. Students will have a spelling assignment each night for homework. The test will be given on Friday, the 2nd. 

Students practiced using new vocabulary for this week's Anchor Text. It is titled Technology Wins the Game. This is an informational text that teaches readers about inventions that help athletes. Students made predictions about the story after carefully previewing it. Tomorrow we will read the story and work on comprehension. 

PEA Reading Buddies came today and read The Long Way to a New Land with students. This is a realistic fiction that describes a Swedish family's journey to America in 1868. Students are really enjoying our Immigration Unit. Students have been broken up into their European families. They chose authentic names and will work together to form their story using details given to them about their homelands. Students will start journaling their experience this week. 

Our math lessons this week include doubling to solve number stories involving area, identifying and explaining arithmetic patterns using properties of operations, and learning the game Salute to find missing factors. Students will have a Home Link each night for homework. 


Report cards went home on Friday. Please sign and return the gold envelope at your earliest convenience. The report card and STAR results are yours to keep at home.

Have a wonderful week! :)

January 22-26

"Bare branches of each tree
on this chilly January morn
look so cold so forlorn.
Gray skies dip ever so low
left from yesterday's dusting of snow.
Yet in the heart of each tree
waiting for each who wait to see
new life as warm sun and breeze will blow,
like magic, unlock springs sap to flow,
buds, new leaves, then blooms will grow."
-  Nelda Hartmann, January Morn  

We had a great start to our week! We worked on phonics and vocabulary words for Young Thomas Edison. Students worked on a sequencing activity after rereading the story. They also read What the Moon is Like with their PEA Reading Buddies this morning. Ms. Karen came for Brain Gym and students enjoyed working on starfish to help write neatly, skull tapping for focus, Sun Salutations for lengthening and strengthening and racquet balls for bilateral coordination.

We will continue with Unit 5 in math this week. Our Learning Objectives involve recognizing equivalent fractions using a visual fraction model, using helper facts to solve harder multiplication facts, and exploring the use of doubling to solve number stories involving area. Students will have a Home Link each night for homework. 

Our Lesson 10 spelling rule involved vowel sounds in the word talk. This pattern fit with our anchor text as well. Words with aw, au, augh, ough, and o were all introduced. Students have one more spelling homework due for this cycle tomorrow. The test will be given tomorrow as well. I will not be giving the Lesson 11 pretest until next Monday. 

Scholastic book orders are due on January 29th. Our classroom code is HB244.

Have a fabulous week! :)

January 16-19

"The birds are gone, The ground is white,
The winds are wild, They chill and bite;  
The ground is thick with slush and sleet,  
And I barely feel my feet." 
-  Winter Poems 

We started a new unit in reading this morning. Students were introduced to the vocabulary and our new spelling pattern. Our anchor text for this unit is titled Young Thomas Edison. It is a biography that focuses on Edison's early life as a novice inventor. 

We began Unit 5 in math today. We will be studying fractions and multiplication strategies for the rest of the month. Students will represent fractions using standard notation, words and drawings. They will recognize equivalent fractions using a visual fraction model. They will also use helper facts to solve more difficult multiplication facts. Students will have a Home Link for homework each night. 

Our spelling rule involves the vowel sounds in (talk). Students will have four assignments due before the test on January 23rd.

Scholastic book orders are due January 29th. HB244 is our classroom code. 

Thank you for your continued support! Have a fantastic week! :)

January 8-12

"Bare branches of each tree
on this chilly January morn
look so cold so forlorn.
Gray skies dip ever so low
left from yesterday's dusting of snow.
Yet in the heart of each tree
waiting for each who wait to see
new life as warm sun and breeze will blow,
like magic, unlock springs sap to flow,
buds, new leaves, then blooms will grow."
-  Nelda Hartmann, January Morn 

Thank goodness for warmer weather! We started our morning off outside before school started, which was a nice change from last week. Our PEA Reading Buddies came to visit and share a book with students. We also had Brain Gym with Ms. Karen which is always a big hit. Students used racquet balls on the balance board to promote whole brain learning.

We will finish Unit 4 in math this week. We will continue to work on Perimeter and Area as well as Rectilinear Figures. Students will have a Home Link on Monday through Wednesday evenings. There will be a Unit 4 Review Packet sent home for homework on Thursday night, after we finish reviewing in class. The assessments will be given on Friday. Please look for the Family Letter for Unit 5 in your child's folder at the end of this week. 

We will have our spelling test tomorrow. Students have one more spelling assignment due for this cycle. We will wait until next Tuesday to have the pretest for Unit 10 due to the upcoming holiday and the three day weekend. 

Scholastic book orders will go home this week. Please order online using classroom code HB244 or send in the order form with a check by January 29th. 

Have a wonderful week! 

January 2-5

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

We had a great first day back to school! Students were introduced to new vocabulary and a new spelling pattern. Our new Anchor Text is a realistic fiction titled Kamishibai Man. We are looking forward to reading the story tomorrow. 

Our spelling rule involves words with /ou/ and /ow/ pattern. Students will have a spelling assignment each night for homework. Our spelling test will take place next Tuesday, the 9th. 

We are working hard to distinguish between perimeter and area in math. Students are learning to use composite units to find both perimeter and area. There will be a Home Link each night this week. 

Have a wonderful week and stay warm! :)