Weekly Update

Reading Workshop:
We are starting our Country Research Unit this week.  Last week students were asked to submit the countries of their ancestors in the order that they were most interested in studying them.  Today, your child will come home with a note that indicates the country he or she has been assigned along with more detailed information about the International Festival on Thursday, February 26th.

Writing Workshop:
Last week students finished their final draft of their personal essay.  We are now reading over the essays and using the rubric below to assess your child's writing based on the lessons we taught throughout the unit.  The graded essays will come home at the end of the week.

Math:
Last week students were taught lessons that focused on adding and subtracting time as well as solving story problems with elapsed time.   At the end of the week, students practiced reading and creating bar graphs with multi-digit numbers and constructing and and analyzing frequency tables and line plots.   They also used graphs to solve time and measurement problems.  This week we will spend time reviewing all concepts that have been taught before giving the unit test on Wednesday.  A unit review will come home on Monday for students to complete as a study guide for the test.

Social Studies:
We began our region tour of the Southeast last week.  Students completed a geography challenge to learn more about the geography of the Southeast before we began traveling.  Students then visited the first two stops; The Everglades in southern Florida and the JFK Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida.  During the first part of this tour, we are pretending to travel on fishing boats.

Class Store:
The class store was open once again last week.  Students were excited to spend the money they had earned in the classroom to purchase special things for themselves and gifts for others!

All-Star of the Week:
Elena was our awesome All-Star of the week last week!  She loved sharing items from her sharing sack including her American Girl named Gabriella.  She also loved telling the class about her family photos and reading aloud her favorite book Monster Munchies.  Her favorite parts of the week were having her cousins join her for lunch and listening to the thoughtful letter from her parents!