Weekly Update

Reading Workshop
After learning about the last 2 fiction genres, Traditional Literature (TL) and Mystery (M), students took a short quiz to see if they could identify a book's genre based on the characteristics of the book and a summary given by the teacher.  Students are always asked to use genre codes when recording books in their reading log.  Students were also introduced to the 3 nonfiction genres: Informational (I), Biography (B) and Autobiography (AB). 

Traditional Literature includes folk tales, legends, tall tales, myths, fables, and fairy tales.

Example of the genre code quiz

For the remaining lessons of our first unit in reading, we will be reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo and using it as a Mentor Text to help teach students specific reading strategies.

Students turn and talk with their reading partner to discuss what is happening in the novel.

Writing Workshop
Our lessons this week focused on helping students make their writing more descriptive.  We used fiction picture books with descriptive language to help students hear what good, descriptive writing sounds like.  These mentor texts were helpful as students attempted to use the 5 senses in their writing while adding stronger verbs and more descriptive adjectives.

We used Owl Moon by Jane Yolen as a mentor text for descriptive language.

Math
This week we continued to work on multiplication and division word problems.  Students need to be able to solve the word problems with a math drawing and an equation.  We also discussed equations with variables, such as 9 x n = 18 so n = 2.  Finally we learned a trick using our hands to help us with our 9 facts for multiplication and division.  Check out the video below from YouTube to understand our 9s trick.

On Friday, a math fact fluency folder came home with your child.  This folder explained how we do multiplication and division fact practice in our classroom and what we expect you to be doing at home.  Students will take quizzes every Tuesday and Thursday in class.  All students will start with 5s multiplications.  You can use the progress chart in the folder to keep track of what level your child is on and what list of facts he or she should be studying each week.  Below are photos of students using fact triangles in class to study their multiplication and division facts.  You can find a set of these fact triangles in the math fact fluency folder that your child can use when practicing at home!

Word Study
We completed our first unit of word study last week.  All students were given 15 words to study and a word sort to complete at home.  The test was given on Friday, and it will be returned on Monday after students highlight the high frequency words that they got correct in their word study folder and rewrite any pattern words that they misspelled.  During the week, students were divided into small groups to practice their assigned patterns by playing word study games and doing activities that helped them study and sort words by their patterns.

Social Studies
We are in the middle of our first social studies unit called "Where in the World is Troy, Michigan?" In this geography unit, students are learning about the location of Troy in relation to its greater surroundings. Essentially, we started in outer space and are zooming in to find the city of Troy. Along the way, students will learn about the 7 continents in the world, the 3 countries on the continent of North America, the 50 states in the U.S.A., the 5 regions of our country, our state, our county, and finally the wonderful city of Troy.