Corderman's Kiddos!: Week of 10/25

Hi families......hope you had a terrific Fall Break! My family had an enjoyable one. We had a couple disappointments with being rained out on Eli's first zoo trip :( and OU losing. Oh well, there will be other zoo trips and OU games. :) This week will be a busy one with Red Ribbon Week and Halloween! Here is what's on the agenda:

Reading - We will begin the novel, the BFG by Roald Dahl. It is a great and funny story! I think the children will get a kick out of it. We will be working on webbing characteristics of main characters, along with answering literal(answers stated in the story) and inferential(answers inferred from the story) questions.

Spelling - We will be working on a poem for fluency this week called Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. Our spelling words will come from the poem. They will be listed under "Halloween" on spellingcity.com.

English - Adverbs, Animal Report -We have been studying biomes in science. The children got to pick out animals to research that were found in the biome they were studying. We spent 2 days in the computer lab researching and taking notes on the animals' habitats, life cycles, descriptions, etc.. We will now learn how to turn our research notes into paragraphs for our reports.

Math - Telling Time Please work on this skill at home with your child, as well as elapsed time....such as, "It's 5:00 now, what time will it be in 2 and half hours? or It's 3:30, what time was it 1 hour and 15 minutes ago?" Also, don't forget to continue studying multiplication facts with your child...(if he/she doesn't know them).

Science - We will finish our biomes and work on our animals to put into the biomes. We will also be reading about animal characteristics during our morning work time. *Remember that the edible animal cells will be due next Friday, November 5th.

****Other things to remember:

Red Ribbon Week
   Monday - Wear your PJ's and Follow your dreams, don't do drugs
   Tuesday - Wear your favorite team jersey and Stay in the game, don't do drugs
   Wednesday - Wear your clothes inside/out and remember that Drugs will turn you inside out
   Thursday - Wear a tie-dyed shirt and say Peace out to drugs
   Friday - Wear red for Red Ribbon Week

Halloween Party
   The Halloween Parade will be first thing in the morning with the party directly following it. The children need to come to school in costume(if they are dressing up) and will take turns changing into their regular clothes during the party.

Fall Leaves
   I've been watching the trees. Some of the leaves are starting to turn colors. This is a beautiful time of year. Children, you need to be on the lookout for pretty leaves in the next 2 weeks. We will be doing an art project on November 12th that will require leaves. Look for different colors, sizes, and shapes. You need to collect around 12 to 15, maybe even more. Once you have collected them, you need to rinse and press them. I always soak them in a sink of water for around 10 minutes, take them out, blot dry them with a paper towel, and then lay them in between layers of newspapers. I then will stack heavy books on top of them. They need to press for at least 3 days. Do not try to bring in leaves that have not been pressed. Your art project will not work. You have plenty of time to do this, if you start watching and thinking about it now. Happy leaf collecting....have fun.....our art project is really cool!