Week Twenty-Three

We had a busy week in Room 104.  We caught up on some topics we missed last week and spent a lot of time writing and working on our dinosaur reports.

Our ELA Block included new spelling lists. Keep studying at home!  In RUOS, we spent our week reading more non-fiction text, identifying main ideas, vocabulary, and author's purpose, and looking at structure and procedures. We wrap up the unit next week.  In WUOS, we read about dinosaurs, took notes, and used those notes to write a book about our dinosaur. We started with an introduction before writing chapters on diet, appearance, life, and behavior. We ended with a conclusion. The class is still developing their paragraph writing. We took note that a main idea is a great start to a paragraph, followed by detail sentences. We will finish and present our dinosaur reports next week. Parents are invited from 9:30-10:15 on Thursday in the Commons. We also looked at prefixes and suffixes in language and went to an assembly on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on Thursday. It was great!

In our afternoon block, we spent our science time the week looking at "Pebbles, Sand, and Silt. We used a screen to sort rocks by size. We learned that pebbles, gravel, and sand are different sizes. Pebbles are the largest, gravel next, and sand is the smallest. We put some gravel and sand in a vial with water and shook it to discover that there is something smaller than sand: silt!  Finally, we learned about landforms. We discovered new types of landforms and how they are formed. Some things take a long time (weathering, erosion), while others can change the land quickly (volcano, flood, earthquake).  In math, we continued module 4 on Addition and Subtraction Within 200. We found new ways to add -working vertically to use the totals below strategy, where you add ones, tens, and hundreds before adding them together. We also compared methods and tried to see how they are similar, how they get us to the same answer. Lastly, we tried problems by solving them with more than one strategy to check our answers.

We also had our specials. We got back to Art with Ms. Sundquist and worked on dinosaur pictures. We had a lot of fun singing, using rhythm, and playing games in Music with Ms. Altshuler. We used question words and spoke in complete sentences in Spanish with Sra. Colmenero. We read a story and checked out books with the substitute Mrs. Pollack in the library. Of course e played some fun games and had an awesome time in P.E. with Mr. Simatic. We also met with our book buddies in Mr. Manus' class and had Art Start with Mrs. McNulty. Our mosaics are almost finished!

Next week will turn in our Dinosaur Projects on Monday and share them Thursday morning with parents and students. We also celebrate Valentine's Day on Thursday. Remember that we  don't have school next  Friday. (or the Monday after). So get a good start on that homework packet and spelling list. Have a great weekend!