What's Happening in Room? (January)

 January in Review

Here are some things we've been working on this month:

Reading:  We continued and wrapped up our mystery unit.  We worked on identifying clues and motives for different suspects as we were reading our mysteries.  (Really looking closely at our reading to pay attention to these types of things.)  We also learned about red herring clues, which is when an author tries to trick the reader and the crime solver with a clue that throws us off track.  To wrap up this unit we learned that the skills that we use when reading mysteries also help us when we are reading any type of fiction book. 

 

Writing:  In Writing we have been working on the "Baby Literary Essay" unit.  With this unit we are working on identifying and supporting our opinions about texts.  When writing a literary essay the children need to name the story they are writing about, state their opinion or thesis, give evidence from the story by using exact quotes or summarizing parts of the story, use transitional phrases to lead into the evidence, and explain why their evidence matters.  We are now going to be adding introductions and conclusions to these essays.  During our word study we continued to work with different vowel combinations and the different sounds that they make such as the combinations that make the "aw", "ow", and "oy" sounds.  

Social Studies:  We are working on our second unit "History".  With this unit we learned about why people have come to settle in the United States from other countries.  We also spent a lot of time learning about how all of our cultures are unique.  We learned about different languages, holidays, traditions, and foods that communities share.  As part of this unit we learned about different individuals who worked to make their community better.  In groups the students read about one individual and created a human monument that represented the work that this person did.  They also created a plaque describing what the monument shows and how this person helped their community.  You be able to see pictures of these monuments at Open House!

Math:  In module 3 we are continuing to focus on multiplication and division.  We are focusing on the facts for 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 and 1. We have been using the distributive property and regrouping factors using the associative property to help with multiplying.  We have been solving one and two step word problems and recognizing patterns in input-output tables.  It is very important that students keep practicing their multiplication and division facts!  

Coming Up

Some of the things we will be working on in February are:

Reading:  We are beginning a new unit called "Character Studies".  We are focusing back on fiction reading and will be learning more about the theme of stories, plot, and comparing/contrasting characters.

Social Studies:  Our next unit will be about economics.  

Health:  "I Like Your Attitude" is the title of our next health unit.

Dates to Remember:
Feb. 15 - Open House

Feb. 16 - Staff Development Day--No School

Feb. 19 - President's Day--No School