Happy Friday!  What a wonderful 1st week back from Spring Break!

Writing:  This week in writing we have been focusing on publishing our argument/opinion essays.  The kids have been working on using strategies to sway their audience into taking their side.  Sometime within the next couple of weeks they will have the chance to present to a panel of teachers and cafeteria workers about whether they think we should serve or not serve chocolate milk in the cafeteria.  They have been working extremely hard on these pieces of writing and I am very proud of them!

Math: In math this week we started our chapter on geometry.  We have learned about polygons, triangles, quadrilaterals, parallelograms, 3-D figures, and volume.  We have learned a lot this week...WHEW!  The kids have been doing an awesome job in this unit and are very excited to be learning these topics.  I encourage the kids to practice classifying shapes so that they feel confident with the new information.

Reading:  This week we have spent time practicing answering constructed answer questions on the computer.  Because we have practiced writing on the computer so often the kids seem very excited about being able to use the computer for test-like questions! They also enjoy reading from the e-library that we have available here at school.

Upcoming Events:

4/3: No School

Have a wonderful weekend!  

Sincerely,

Miss DiFranco

Happy Saturday!  I hope everyone has the chance to enjoy the nice weather this weekend!  It is much needed. :)

Science:  During science this week we started a new chapter on force and motion.  Lesson one taught us how force can cause objects to move in different ways.  We also discussed positive and negative charges and how like forces repel each other and opposite charges attract each other.  We also started learning about simple machines.

Writing:  In writing we continued to revise and edit our first argument letter about whether or not chocolate milk should continue to be served in the cafeteria.  On Wednesday we wrote the clean copy of our letter and signed, sealed and delivered them! We are excited to see if our letters worked!

Math:  We finished up chapter 11 in math this week.  We have been discussing the metric and customary systems and the different units used to measure capacity, mass, and length.  Our main focus this chapter has been converting between units and learning about the relationships of the various units.  Our chapter 11 test will be on Wednesday, March 11.  I encourage the kiddos to start studying on Monday so that they feel ready for the test Wednesday.  We will be reviewing on Monday and Tuesday as well.  I will be sending study materials in an email on Monday afternoon.  

Reading: We have continued working in our test preparation unit for reading.  We have looked at various texts and made predictions about questions that test makers could ask us about the text.  We have continued practicing test taking strategies this week especially using context clues and background knowledge to understand questions that may be confusing to us because of the way the question is worded.

Upcoming Events:

3/8 : Spring Musical 4:00 pm

3/12: Parent Teacher Conferences

3/13: Blue Ribbon Assembly - Wear your Blue Ribbon Shirt!

3/13: Half Day

3/16 - 3/20: Spring Break

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!!

Miss DiFranco