Week of 3/09

Hi families!

Here's what's ahead for this week:

Reading: Literature circles - Three groups finished their book last week. One group completed the work that went with it, one group is in the middle of the work, and the other group will begin the work on Monday. I have a fourth group that has a pretty long book, but hopefully they will be able to finish it this week, and then do their related work the week after Spring Break. The work includes an English assignment which is an apostrophe search. They look in their book for contractions and possessives. The other book activity is a "sort of" book report which includes writing a list of general and difficult questions from the story, writing a glossary of unfamiliar/unusual words from the story, collecting 5 items from home that connect to the story, and drawing or finding a picture that connects to the story. After they complete those objectives, they put them in a container of some sort like an oatmeal container, cereal box, or anything. We then will meet as a group and present the book report to each other. The Homer Price group met and presented on Friday and did a superb job! It was quite fun! I am anxious to meet with the other children. The Boxcar Children group will need to have their book work completed and be ready to meet on Wednesday. The Indian in the Cupboard group will need to have their work completed and be ready to meet on Thursday. The School Story group will meet after Spring Break sometime, after they have had time to finish their story and complete their work. I will announce that later. The Homer Price group will be assigned a short, funny Roald Dahl book to read this week while the other groups are working on their work. Also, this week for reading, we will be working on the skill, cause and effect, again. We need more practice with that particular skill.

Math: Geometry, continued review of all other skills

English: Friendly letters (pen pal letters), also relearning the rules of adding suffixes

Spelling: Check the spellingcity site for list 21. I will add the enrichment list to the site soon.

Social Studies: We will complete the independent study of the Midwest. I will not be testing the children over the people and events of the Midwest region. Most of our history is in the NE and SE regions, which I did test over. They have read a lot about people like Henry Ford and Sitting Bull, as well as Mount Rushmore, traveling by wagon, the steel industry, and what the layout of the land is like. They should have a good idea now, about that area of our country, but let's face it, it is not near as interesting as say the the first colonies, American Revolution, Civil War, Abe Lincoln, or the Underground Railroad!! We will have tests this week, however, on the Midwest states locations and capitals. Remember, the location test will be Tuesday and the capital test will be Thursday. I sent home a study guide on Thursday. We went over the states and talked about ways to remember their locations. Hopefully, they brought their study guide home. If they lost it, they will need to take a SS book home to study.

Science: We will begin a unit after Spring Break on the Human Body! It should be lots of fun!

Spanish: Animals/Habitats Most of the children did awesome on their Spanish tests! Yeah!

I wanted to thank you again for all the Read Across America week goodies! We will be eating more this week!

Remember Bill Wallace will be here Monday! What an exciting day it will be to meet a famous author!!