BREAKING NEWS....
Someone is eating the PENCILS in our classroom!
They disappear at the drop of a hat!
If you would please replenish your child's pencil supply in the next week,
that would be very helpful...thanks!
Poetry is our focus this month in language arts...and all of the poetic elements that go with it...figurative language, mood, setting, tone, etc! We spent all week reading and analyzing poetry...and the kids wrote poems...they wrote beautiful haiku!! We read two fun books written in completely in similies, and one written completely in haiku poems...titled Dogku and written by our favorite...Andrew Clements! This entire unit is centered on reading and writing poetry...wait until you see the final products...you will be amazed...WE'VE GOT POETS!!
We will continue with poetry next week...each child will choose a poem of their own to memorize...they need to show the poem to me by Wednesday of next week. Then they will have 10 days to work on the memorizing. Their communication grade will be all about eye contace, volume, expression, and fluency. The poem has to be at least six lines...I will provide plenty of choices within the schoolday, but if your child would rather choose one from their own collection at home, that is perfectly fine with me! More on that next week!
Social Studies...this week we read about supply and demand, then we got in groups and discussed different situations and how supply and demand would affect prices and profit! The best part of our week was our visit from Mr. Judd, Mehta's dad. He is an economist and he brought his immense knowledge to us today...he shared where an economist might work, what an economist does, and why that work is important. Then he connected it all to the production of chocolate...we had a wonderful discussion about how and why chocolate bars are priced differently. We learned that some chocolates are made locally and others are made across the country. We found out that some companies participate in free trade and others do not. It was a morning of enlightenment and I believe we have a writing assignment that will come from all of it...more to come on that next week!
Math...give me a G, give me an E, give me an O, give me an M, give me an E, give me a T, give me an R, give me a Y...what does that spell!?!? A whole lot of fun, that's what! This week we worked with shapes...all the "gons", we talked about angles, we found right angles, obtuse angles, and acute angles...and today we began using protractors to measure angles!! Vocabulary is just flying around the room...words like: segment, ray, lines, angles, obtuse, enneagon (that was a new one to me!), quadrilateral, equilateral, equiangular, isosceles, scalene, etc...can you just imagine how all of your sponges are soaking it up!??!?! The Q1 post test was given today...I will try REALLY hard to grade them this weekend...but they take FOREVER (can you hear the whine! :-)) As soon as I have the post tests graded, I will share them with the kids and then I can let you know how your child did...feel free to send me an email mid week and ask for your child's score!
CURSIVE...aiyaiyai...we are working our way through the letters...most of the kids are fine when the letters are set apart from others...but once they start connecting them is where we run into problems...please keep an eye on your child while they are forming the letters and connections...it really does end up making a difference once they are required to write everything in cursive.
Have a great weekend!
