March 3rd-March 7th, 2014

Hello everyone! Can you believe it is March already? It sure doesn't feel like it with all of this snow and cold weather. I am hoping for warm weather soon! Here is an update on what we are planning for class this week (hoping that we are in school ALL 5 DAYS!)

Language Arts: Our essential question this week is: What causes change in a community? Our main selection, I Could Do That! Esther Morris Gets Women the Vote, talks all about the women's suffrage movement! We will be working with the comprehension strategy of cause and effect.

Spelling: We are continuing to work with VCCV and VCV patterns (Vowel-consonant-vowel). Make sure that your child is studying the words out of order! I started testing them out of order again and scores dropped. It is fabulous that students are studying, but we don't want it to be ALL memorization of the order of words! :) Here is this week's list:
1. dentist
2. recent
3. final
4. silver
5. finish
6. capture
7. narrow
8. cabin
9. shelter
10. dinner
11. ahead
12. minus
13. corner
14. minute
15. hollow
16. value
17. divide
18. reward
19. famous
20. broken

Math: We will be finishing up Unit 7 this week with probability and multiplying fractions, with review on Wednesday and Thursday. The Unit 7 Test will be this Friday, March 7th!

Science: We will also be finishing up our science unit on the Human Body! We will continue to discuss muscles this week and have a quick formative assessment on Friday (Nothing to study for, however).

Other items:
-Tomorrow your child will be sent home with book orders for the month of March. I didn't put a due date on them, but I will put in the order next Friday, March 14th. They will also be receiving their March reading log. The goal for March is 300 minutes. We skipped last month due to Optimist Good Reader, so they might need some reminders to be keeping track of their minutes! We are also doing an optional "READ-O" for the month of March. I'm told the students did this in January, but they will be getting READ-O activities to do for extra rewards in the classroom- The handout will be in their Leopard Book tomorrow. If you have any questions about these items please email!

-Last week was Mrs. Wieskamp's last day! The students and I are very sad to see her go, but wish her luck at her new job! Though this transition might have been a change for everyone, I think it was a good learning experience- and the students got 2 TEACHERS who care about them a ton and want them to do well! Thank you to all who have been patient and supportive through this transition and know that Mrs. Wieskamp and I worked very hard to ensure that the student's were taken care of. Thank you to all who attended parent-teacher conferences as well! For me personally it was difficult to not be present at the first round of conferences, so I enjoyed meeting and seeing all of you again.

-Ms. Shapleigh