Weekly News March 7-11

We are SO looking forward to the Spring weather this week and fingers crossed that it sticks around through...oh, May or so.  Don't forget to check out the school March newsletter and specialist newsletter!

Upcoming Dates:
March 11th: Author's Breakfast--come anytime between 7:15-7:45 to check out some recent writing
March 14th: Culvers Night
March 17th: K-4 Field Trip to the Performing Arts Center
March 21st and 22nd: Conferences
March 23-28th: No School--Spring Break!
March 25: End of 3rd Quarter
March 31: Jump Rope for Heart

Reading:  Our non-fiction reading unit has really upped the excitement around reading in our classroom as students are learning all sorts of cool facts and becoming experts on a multitude of topics. This week we will focus on noticing how the last pages of nonfiction texts go with the rest of the text.  We will also share important information with others like television reporters.  On Friday we will move towards learning more about the words in these texts by learning to collect 'expert words' and using them to be precise when teaching others about our topic.

Writing: In writing this week, the finish line is fast approaching for our persuasive writing unit. Students are thinking of who their audience is and reading and writing in a way that reflects their feelings.

They will be planning and rehearsing speeches, reading their pieces aloud, using punctuation marks as "road signs", cueing them to stop, use an asking voice, or make it loud.  Finally, they will be fixing and fancying up their writing for publication. Using a checklist will help to remind them all they have learned about spelling and conventions so far this year and about opinion writing across this unit. 

Math: This week the attributes of a cube will be introduced( solid, 6 sides, all sides are the same, and all sides are shaped like a square). We will be creating and solving addition and subtraction problems and equations for numbers 6-10 and for fluency within 5. Students will practice ordering numbers 1 through 20 and modeling teen numbers as a group of ten ones and extra ones. Our centers for the week are:

Sleeping Bugs Book

Beat the Addition

Teen Number Books

10 on the Spot Game!  

Science:  We will wrap up our Paper and Wood science unit this week by using what we know about the strength of various materials to create sculptures out of multiple types of wood and paper. 

Word Work:  We will continue to focus the following words: on, are, an, up, this.  We have officially learned all of the kindergarten sight words and are beginning to add in additional commonly used words from our texts and writing.