Happy Early Halloween

With the short week last week and spending all my free time gearing up for my daughter's birthday party over the weekend (oh my goodness, she turns 5 today, where does the time go?!?!?!? Next year I will have a Kindergartener!) I completely forgot about updating our class blog. Anyway, here is a brief overview of our week. Hope everyone has a fun and safe Halloween and hopefully no tummy aches!

News of the week:

Wednesday, October 31st- HAPPY HALLOWEEN! RED FMI shirt day has been moved to Friday due to Halloween!

Timeline for Halloween activities:

1:55-2:05 Last Recess

2:05  Students into classrooms to change into costumes

Parents welcome to the playground area or gym if raining

2:20  Start parade around the track

2:40  All classes should be done

Parents who are staying are welcome to come to the workroom

3:00  Students who need to change will do so

3:15  Dismissal

Friday, November 2nd- Wear RED FMI shirt (moved this week only due to Halloween)

Sunday, November 4th- Daylight Savings Time, you get an extra hour, please remember to reset your clocks and change the batteries in your smoke detectors! 

Upcoming dates: 

November 6th    Picture retake day.  If you are going to retake your picture you will need to send the 

                        previous pictures back. 

November 9th    No School.  Teacher Workday.

November 14th   Early Out day  1:25 PM

Parent/Teacher Conferences are coming up.  You should be receiving a time request form home this week  If you have questions, please call or email me.  November 15th and 19th are the dates.

November 21st-23rd No School.  Thanksgiving Break.

  

Math- We just wrapped up our unit on subtraction and took a few assessments for report cards. We will continue to visit these skills and facts throughout the entire year. Today we started talking about things that come in groups to kick off our multiplication unit.

Reading- Last week we read OPT:An Ilusionary Tale by Arline and Joseph Baum. This selection is a royal fantasy of optical illusions, a jester leads readers through the kingdom of OPT. Often in rhyme, the jester's comments, directions, and questions guide the reader to discover the illusions hidden in the illustrations. Today we will review vocabulary and take our unit test. Which is good because we have a busy week, tomorrow we are celebrating my birthday and enjoying our Brownie Point reward- a PIZZA PARTY! and Wednesday is our Halloween party. The rest of the week will be used for a lot of comprehension skill review.

Text Talk- Last week week we read Porkenstein by Kathryn Lasky. In the book, Dr. Smart Pig is tired of being lonely after the Big Bad Wolf has eaten his two brothers so he decides to invent a friend. After a few mistakes, he ends up with a large friend who helps him out. At the end they dress up and go trick-or-treating. Words we discussed are: creation, incredible, colossal, disbelief, creaky, and isolated.

Social Studies- Last week we talked a lot about maps. We discussed what view does a map show?, How are colors used as map symbols?, How do maps show natural features?,  and How do maps show cultural features? 

Today we discussed What is a globe? Starting tomorrow we are going to step away from our atlases, and start talking about the election process. Then on November 9th, I am planning on starting our new science unit, Ideas and Inventions. We will jump back into our atlases between science units again. 

Mrs. Jodie Yuska

Books, books, and more books.... we had a TON of reading adventures this week.

News of the week: On Thursday, we had America Reads Day. Thank you to the outstanding readers and incredible behavior of the kids.  Since we had so much reading this week, each child took home a Pizza Hut Book-it certificate (pictured below). 

Here is a run down from our busy day of reading.
Kim Woods-  Mrs. Toggle's Zipper by Robin Pulver
             When Charlie McButtons Lost Power by Suzanne Collins
Carri Redondo- The Boy Who Changed the World by Andy Andrews
Corey Petrash (#15 for the Roughriders)- Smelly Socks by Robert Munsch
Jess Maple- Wreck-It Ralph by Disney Press (Movie comes out in theatres November 2nd)
Amy Diers- Multiple poems from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein 
Mary Kinkead- Thank You Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco
Jo Hepner- My Sister Ate One Hare by Bill Grossman
Doug Paulson- Monsters Eat Whiny Children by Bruce Eric Kaplan

Thank you again, we appreciated it very much and enjoyed being read to by you all! :)

Sunday, October 21st- Happy Birthday Brayden and Zander!
Monday, October 22nd- NO SCHOOL (Professional Development for teachers)
Wednesday, October 24th- 1st round of football playoffs
Thursday, October 25th- Fall Fling 5:30-8:00 PM
Sunday, October 27th- Happy Birthday Declan!

Math- This week we worked on 2-digit and 3-digit subtraction with regrouping. We also worked on how to regroup and subtract across zeros. The kids were excited to hear we will continue practicing subtraction with regrouping Tuesday through Friday, then start multiplication on Monday, October 29th!

Reading- This week we are reading Science Magic by Alison Alexander and Susie Bower. This selection presents five step-by-step scientific experiments that have a sense of wonder. Each experiment is accompanied by photographs, illustrations, and diagrams. All of these are followed by an explanation of what makes them "magic." Strategies we have used with this text are how to follow steps in a process as well as how diagrams and illustrations can help us understand the text better. This was a hard story to test over as students were asked to remember specifics steps of an experiment when there were multiple experiments we read about.

Text Talk- This week we read Picnic at Mudsock Meadow by Patricia Polacco. In the book, no mater what William does, there is a girl named Hester who makes fun of him. When he is able to prove that Quicksand Bottoms is not haunted, but just has glowing swamp gas, Hester realizes that William is not so bad after all. Vocabulary words we discussed this week are bleak, eerie, legend, mortified, mischievous, and reveal.

Writing- This week we worked on creating number notes and turning them into paragraphs. We will continue this skill this week before having fun with some Halloween writing prompts. 

Social Studies- This week the students begun working in their Map Champ Atlas. In this atlas they will be completing a series of lessons involving maps, globes, history timelines, and the branches of government. The majority of the lessons will involve informing and comparing the 7 continents and major oceans. You will even be informed about an ocean you may not have already heard of, the Southern Ocean. It was something new to me when I started teaching these lessons 8 years ago! :) So far we have learned about different kinds of communities, what kind of places are located in a community, and what goods are produced in some communities. We also read the book Me on the Map and talked about where our place is on multiple maps. 

Another busy week!

There were a lot of notes that went home this week. I hope you had a chance to catch them all. :)

Congratulations Joy for winning 3rd place in the Marion Firefighter poster contest!  

Upcoming dates:
Thursday, October 18th- America Reads (We have so many readers! I love it!)
Sunday, October 21st- Happy Birthday Brayden and Zander!
Monday, October 22nd- NO SCHOOL (Professional Development for teachers)
Wednesday, October 24th- 1st round of football playoffs
Thursday, October 25th- Fall Fling 5:30-8:00 PM
Sunday, October 27th- Happy Birthday Declan!
Wednesday, October 31st- HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Timeline for Halloween activities:

1:55-2:05 Last Recess

2:05  Students into classrooms to change into costumes

Parents welcome to the playground area or gym if raining

2:20  Start parade around the track

2:40  All classes should be done

Parents who are staying are welcome to come to the workroom

3:00  Students who need to change will do so

3:15  Dismissal

Math- This past week we worked on subtracting two digit numbers with and without regrouping. We will continue reviewing this skill this week. However, we will start subtracting three digit numbers and across zeros this week. This is usually a frustrating week of math for a lot of kids.

Reading- Last week we read Two Bad Ants by Chris Van Allsburg. This is a story about how a troop of ants go on an adventure to collect some delicious crystals and take them back to their queen. Two ants decide to stay and have quite the adventure in a hot cup of bitter coffee, getting scorched in a toaster, rumbling through a garbage disposal, and receiving an electric shock from an electrical outlet. Needless to say, when the troop came back for more crystals (sugar), the two bad ants did not choose to stay behind again! We discussed a lot about plot and how stories build excitement and then take the excitement back out of the story.

Text Talk- There was not a Text Talk story last week.

Writing- We worked really hard on making T-charts and turning them into a paragraph. This week we will explore writing number notes and turning them into paragraphs. Eventually we will use these formats to create multi-paragraph reports.

Science-This week we finished up our Plant Growth and Development unit. We took our assessment and summarized what we learned. On Friday, our final activity was creating fall trees with facts, descriptions, or words we learned during the unit. My sample is below, but more can be found under the student work tab! :)

Have a great week! :)
Mrs. Jodie Yuska

1st Trimester Midterm

Today I sent home midterm grades for reading and spelling. I will send home a grade for math and science after we have finished a few assessments. Grades sent home today were attached to a  bright pink sheet. The bookmarks I talked about last week were also attached in the back. 

 

 

Here is a description of our week: 

Math- This week we rapped up 2 and 3 digit addition, although we will continue to work and review this concept all year. We took a test over place value, rounding, and addition facts. Today we started 2 digit subtraction of whole numbers. On Monday we will estimate differences (round and then subtract), on Tuesday we will start the fun of regrouping to subtract multi digit numbers. This can be rather intimidating to many students.

Reading- This past week we read The Terrible Eek by Patricia Compton. In this story, there is a heavy rainstorm. During the rainstorm, a wolf and a thief misunderstand a father’s comments about is greatest fear: “a terrible leak.” The thought it was a “terrible eek.”  Talk of this “terrible EEK” frightens the eavesdropping pair: The resulting comedy of errors will amuse readers in this retelling of a Japanese tale. With this story we studied  cause and effect by examining the animals causes for misunderstanding, and what effects there where. There was even a chance for us to create our own terrible eek.

 

Text Talk- This week we read Rats on the Roof by James Marshall. This book is a compilation of seven different stories. We focused on a story about a brontosaurus who begins to eat an oak tree which is the home of an owl. The owl asks her bird friends for help and eventually the brontosaurus leaves them alone.  Vocabulary words we discussed this week are collaboration (work together), steadfast (loyal), ferocious (mean and scary), queasy (feeling sick), relocate (move), and lumbered (move slowly). 

Writing- (these lessons will be different if your child goes to Mrs. Gatrost at this time) 

This week we worked on writing using transition words. The students finished up their ouch stories and presented them to the class. We went from using basic notes to filling out a t-chart (looks like a capital T) and where to place the topic, big ideas. "give me more" details, and the conclusion. Today we turned our t-chart into paragraphs about a wish. I am planning on placing these in conference folders as a writing artifact. Below is an example we created as a class.

 

 

Science-  A study guide went home on Thursday. We will have our test over our plant unit on Tuesday, October 9th. In case you have not seen it, can not read your child's writing, or think they made a mistake. I am including one I filled out as well. 

This week we spent a couple of days reviewing parts of the plant, their jobs, and had a lot of discussion about bees! :) Today we created plant models using construction paper, labels, cupcake liners, and popcorn for seeds. I love how they turned out. I had a chance to take a picture of most of them and have them posted under the "Student Work" tab. Take a look, they are so cute and unique. 

A puzzle with the parts of a flower

Our plants are drying out. Next week we should be able to attempt to take some seeds out of their pods and make one final observation. 

On Tuesday, the Marion firefighter will be back to talk to us. If you child has not yet turned in these sheet to become a junior firefighter, please get them in or have your child ask for a new copy on Monday and try to return them by Tuesday! :) 

 

 

 

I hope you have a terrific weekend! 

Mrs. Jodie Yuska