Jan 24th
Continent Study: South America

We are continuing to learn about the continent of South America! So far we’ve explored information on different landmarks and people from the continent. Students are beginning to learn about many different South American animals and will watch a fun video presentation on the South American jungle and the animals that live there. Please let me know if you are interested in coming in to teach our students something about South America! We’d love to have you in our class. 

Readers Workshop This week in readers we focused on making connections to new things we are learning in our nonfiction books. Students drew on their own experiences to talk and write about what they were reminded of while reading. They then discussed how that helped them understand a little bit more about their topic. Talk to your student about the connections they’re making by asking what they think of when they read a new fact!

Writers Workshop

In writers workshop this week we continued to strengthen our opinion writing by adding more reasons and examples to support our opinions. Students have been working hard to persuade their readers by making sure their opinion is clearly stated, has at least three supporting reasons and examples, and has a conclusion to restate their opinion. Our class also worked on adding transition words to our writing like and, also and because to make our writing flow more smoothly.

We imagined our writing like an oreo. The outsides are opinions, that we state in the beginning and again at the end. The middle is the best part, with all the examples and details that support our opinion.
Practice this at home with your student – ask about their opinions and make sure they give you reasons to support their stance!

Student of the Week:

Solene has been extra focused on her work and actively engaged in many different lessons, from math to geography to reading! She has been a collaborative learner during work time, often choosing to tackle works as a team with her fellow classmates. Solene has especially been challenging herself in reading by taking risks to read more difficult words and books. Way to go Solene – keep up the hard work!!!

Welcome back from the long weekend!!! I hope you all enjoyed the nice break and were able to watch the game, GO SEAHAWKS!!!!

We also remember this weekend a courageous man, Dr. Martin Luther King. The students were able on Friday to write their own "I have a dream speeches" and today we read Martin's Big Words. We also listened to some of Dr. King's speech and painted pictures on him and a beautiful poem. Ask your child what they have learned so far about Dr. Martin Luther King.

Continent Study: South America We are starting to learn about the continent of South America! We learned about different landmarks, animals, and people from South American. Next we will watched a fun fact/video presentation on the continents of the world and we zoomed in on Africa, our previous continent and our new continent of South America! We will compare and contrasted the continents by shape and size and learned a few facts! If you are interested in coming in to teach our students about South America, please let me know! We’d love to have you.

Readers Workshop This week in readers we talked about the main idea of our texts. We talked about how we identify the main idea by pointing out the fact that a main idea is what our text is MOSTLY about. We looked at titles, heading, pictures, looked at repeated words throughout the text, and talked about how sometimes the main idea of a text can be located in the first or last sentence. Please identify the main idea of a text that you read at home with your student!

Writers Workshop

In writers workshop this week we continued to state our opinion. We watched two 5 minute movie clips and wrote about which one we liked best and stated 3 reasons to support our opinion and restated our opinion again. We also wrote our opinion on our favorite ice cream flavor, following the opinion writing structure of: Statement sentence Reason #1 Reason #2 Reason #3 Restate opinion sentence Practice this at home with your student!

Student of the Week:

Olive is becoming a more independent worker and learner everyday. She is starting to focus on his work and is becoming a persistent learner! She really stepped up this week with her writing. She wrote almost four sentences about which movie she felt was the best and gave great reason’s why. She comes to reading groups ready and excited to learn. Keep up all the hard work Olive!!!!!!!!!!

Jan. 10th

Worktime Wow!!!! Everyone has come back this week fresh and ready to learn! Several students have moved up to a blue language workplan! Other students have been working hard at math and learning their teens, completing birds eye-view, and working on their place values! We also introduce some 3D shapes such as cube, cone, sphere, cylinder, and rectangular prism. Ask your child to see if they can find these shapes around your home, outside, or in while driving!!!

Readers Workshop

This week continued learning about non-fiction. We focused on remembering the difference between fiction and non-fiction. We also learned some new text features: table of contents and the index! The students did a great job using these features to find out where in their books there was specific information. Ask them to try using these two non-fiction text features at home.

Writers Workshop:

This week we started a new unit, OPINION WRITING!!!!! Students learned what an opinion is and how to write their opinion, including their reasons. This week they wrote their opinion on the best pet and the best tasting popcorn. Next week they will be watching a few movie previews and writing about which movie they think is the best and why!

Science !

We have started our new unit on wood!! So far we have looked at several wood samples and used our sense to describe each sample.







Geography

We about to start our geography study on the fascinating continent of, South America!!! Please let us know if you would life to come and share or have any artifacts to bring in!!






This week was Romaree’s last week. He is moving to a school closer to his Mom’s home in Redmond. We have been so lucky as a class to have Romaree in room 204 these past two years! We’ll miss his love of learning and great kickball skills!!! Good luck Romaree. Love, Room 204!!!!

Student of the Week:

Charlie has been working so hard since we’ve been back. He has grown so much as a writer and yesterday wrote an amazing opinion piece about soccer! He has made many great friends in class and has become a strong independent student. He is also engaged in reading and writing lessons, and also comes to school with a smile and positive attitude! Way to go Charlie!!!