December Update

Upcoming Events

12/19 Holiday Shop
**Our holiday shop time is 1:20. The students will only be able to buy from the shop on Wednesday during our time. No reutrn visits**

12/20 Winter Party 2-3

12/21-1/6 Winter Break

The class celebrating 12/12/12 with a picture at 12 o'clock.

 
Reading
This week the students used their notes from their historical fiction book to create a cell phone themed book report. Each button explained a different element of their book. Today each student shared their report with the class.

Math
The unit 5 test will be Tuesday the 18th.

On Monday we will complete the study guide, which will come home with the students Monday night. On Wednesday we will go over the test and it will come home with the students on Thursday.

The test will include the following topics:

Identifying place value to the ten thousands

Comparing numbers with >, < or =

Adding and subtraction

Ballpark estimates

Perimeter and Area

Decimals of tenth and hundredth and their matching fractions

Identifying place value of decimals

 

Social Studies
This week we concluded our study of conflict resolution. The students can now identify conflicts start and brainstorm which conflict stopper to use to solve the problem. Each students wrote a personal conflict they had experienced. Another classmate respond and helped brainstorm different solutions the student could use if they conflict occurred again.

Science
The students focused on the characteristics of each of the climate zones. The students collected information about the tropical, arid, temperate, continental and polar climate zones. We used the mini laptops and ipads to aid us in our research.

Next week we will learn about different types of natural disasters. The students will learn how these disasters effect both the environment and people. We will learn how to prepare for each of the natural disasters.

Second Quarter Grade Cards
Grade cards will come home after break.

There will be no blog post next week. Have a wonderful holiday break with your family and friends!

Happy Holidays,

Mrs. Ray

December 7th Update

Upcoming Events

12/19 Holiday Shop

 12/20 Holiday Shop
Winter Party 2-3

12/21-1/6 Winter Break

Reading

We continued asking questions about characters by completing a character study this week. We read 4 different books, which exposed the students to a variety of character personalities. To relate to to our word choice, we have been working on in writing, we used a character trait list to describe the personality of each character with specific and creative word. The students combined all the personality traits they collected for each character. Today we voted and picked the 6 top personality traits for each character.

Here is our list:

Mean Jean: rude, angry, strict, evil, unfriendly and grouchy

Katie Sue: generous, wacky, silly, brave, serious and thankful

Hansel: smart, brave, sneaky, poor, helpful and loving

Gretel: loving, smart, thoughtful, nervous, giving and helpful

Gingerbread Man: wild, quick, sneaky, stubborn, lucky and bold

Fox: greedy, selfish, evil, wise, unfriendly and dishonest

Gingerbread Girl: generous, nice, friendly,fearful, smart, afraid

Writing

Friendly letters have been our main focus this week in writing. We spent time reviewing the 5 parts of a letter (date, greeting, body, closing and signature) and their correct placement. Each students was assigned a secret buddy to write letters to until December 20th. Each Tuesday and Thursday they will receive a new letter from their secret buddy. On the last day before break we will have a reveal activity.

We also used a brainstorm sheet to organize a letter to a solider. Today they students finished their final copy letters which will be sent to the troops.

Next week we will be working with writing using transitions. As the students become better writers their stories become longer. Transitions help students learn when to create new paragraphs and also help build fluency of their writing.

 

 

Math

We worked with place value. The students are able to read and write numbers up to a million.

We worked with both fractions and decimals this week. The students worked with base-ten block manipulatives to identify how tenths and hundredths relate to 1 whole. We also practiced writing equivalent fractions and decimals. The students were able to see tenths or hundredths to create a fraction or a decimal.

We used the following model to help us:

 

hundredths = ?/100 = . __ __

tenths = ?/10 = .__

two tenths = 2/10 = .2
twenty hundredths = 20/100 = .20 or .2
twenty-two hundredths = 22/100 = .23

**This is a complex but the students are not expected to have mastered. But it was just introduced to the concept. The students did a great job working with he manipulatives and we continue to work with this topic next week.

The students used the base ten flat to figure out how many hundredths were in each letter of their name. They then converted the hundredths into decimal and fraction form.

 

We will have the unit 5 test before winter break.

Science

How is weather different from climate?
The students worked hard to answer this questions this week. The students have been collecting and studying different types of weather the last few weeks. The students decided weather was the day to day change in the earth atmosphere. They then learned this week climate is the usual weather in a specific place over time. Information to determine a weather's climate has been determined by collecting information about the area's weather over a long period of time.

Next week we will study the characteristics which make up each of the different climate zones.

Social Studies
The students used personal recess conflicts to practice acting out their new conflict stoppers. Each conflict was examined to find the conflict starter. Small groups then acted out how a conflict stopper could successfully stopping the conflict.

Here are the 10 conflict starters and stoppers:

Have a wonderful weekend,

Mrs. Ray