What's Happening in Room 127? (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. 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.  

 

Writing:  During the first couple of weeks of January we did some seasonal writing.  We have now moved into the "Baby Literary Essay" unit.  With this unit we will work 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.  

Social Studies:  We are wrapping up 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:  We finished module 3 by learning how to multiply by multiples of 10, patterns for multiplying by 11 and 12, and solving two-step word problems. It is very important that students keep practicing their multiplication and division facts!  Our current unit is on area.  So far in this unit we have explored the attributes of rectangles, squares, and trapezoids.  We have also tiled rectangles and squares to relate the side lengths to area. 

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. 13 - Open House

Feb. 14 - Staff Development Day--No School

Feb. 17 - President's Day--No School