Many of us are well into solid routines and work habit patterns. I am still waiting for a few of my friends, to focus on their own learning and socialize at recess. I can definitely see the impact on their work and attitude when they don’t pay attention and use their given time wisely.

Spelling: We will be working on the pages in our workbook that cover the “Shores of the Silver Lake”. They will also have 5 sentences to write on lined paper, using the spelling words. The sentences are also due on Friday. (The sentences need to be done in cursive.)

Reading: We will begin our final story from the anthology, later this week, “By the Shores of the SIlver Lake”. It is an excerpt from the Laura Ingals Wilder series.

We are well into our first novel. There’s an Owl in the Shower. We are on chapter 7. I love this story, I hope the children are enjoying it as much as I am. I have frequently reminded them to make the story come alive as they read it. If they don’t understand something that is happening in the story, then they need to ask themselves questions. (for clarification) Answering questions completely will still be my major focus this year.

The steps to answer a question are:
1. Restate the question
2. Answer the question
3. Support you answer with evidence from the story

This skill is of great importance in my classroom.

Written Language: We are finishing up our letters as a passenger aboard the Titanic. This week we will begin writing letters to a distant relative. I will be asking the children to bring in the family members address, so we can mail them the letter. This is one of my favorite writing pieces for the year. I love when the children receive a note back from their relative at school.

Math: This week we will be working on area and perimeter. This ties in perfectly with our multiplication arrays that we have been creating and having discussions about. Last week we worked on “algebra”. We were finding the missing numbers in a number sentence, by finding the value of the given letter. The children were quite good at this skill. I was very happy. Some of us, me included had difficulty transferring this skill into writing writing math sentences without trying to solve them. i.e. Bill has 5 bags of marbles, each bag contains 8 marbles, write an “algebra” sentence to solve for the missing marbles.

B=bag M=marbles T=total marbles or B x M = T

This seems relatively easy, but conceptually it it rather difficult especially, as the equations become more advanced.

All our math concepts, will not be taught in isolation. Everything in math builds on the previous day or concept. That is why it is still imperative to stay focused and participate.

DCR UPDATE: This is an independent math packet that reviews all the concepts and skills we will be using throughout the year. The children should be pacing themselves, 3-5 pages per week. I give them a weekly check on the board and they should be on pages 19 - 26 as of Friday 10/10/08. There are 3 packets, one for each term. They need to try to finish one packet each term. They do not need to go ahead. It is not a race.

Application of facts and terminology is key to success in math.

Science: We have started our unit on “Land and Water”. Each week we will be conducting hands on experiments and observing what is happening with our cliff, inside our stream table. We will also be learning new vocabulary and adding that to our discussions. I have the children draw and label what they have done for each lesson. On the other side of their drawing, I also have the children write a detailed observation as to what happened during the lesson. I have instructed them to use the newly acquired vocabulary and the old vocab , from past lessons in their writing. This makes it easier to write about what they see and I can judge whether or not the have grasped the new concepts and vocab.


Social Studies: We will have a map quiz on the Northeast probably early next week. I am so excited to begin the Northeast, where we can also get into some discussions on government. This is a fantastic time in our country’s government, especially with the Presidential Elections coming up in November. We began pulling out facts and vocabulary from the landforms of the Northeast. We will be reading about the climate and the resources and industries.

Projects: Just a reminder that the “Animal Project” and the final copy of their written report is due October 15th. The children should be well on their way to completing both requirements. If they have any questions, they need to see me.