Apples, Ungrouping, and Visualizing!

September 30, 2016

Dear Parents and Guardians,

It was nice to meet so many of you last week at open house! Everyone is now signed up for conferences in the end of October (10/19-10/21). I will send home reminders the week prior to the conferences.

This week, we have been working hard to practice respect, kindness, and responsibility as students. The students have had great suggestions about how to be kind to each other, how to try their hardest as students, and how to take care of our classroom supplies so they last.

Reading

We are learning about visualizing in reading. This is a strategy that helps students better understand what they are reading by making a picture or movie in their heads. Ask your child what s/he is visualizing as they are reading. They should be reading for at least 20 minutes each night and recording it in their reading logs.

Writing

We are wrapping up our first writing unit which was focused on creating a supportive, caring writing community. Students have been able to free write about different topics. Next week, we will begin a unit on the writing process where they will take one piece from rough draft to publication. Find out what your child has been writing.

Math

This week we have been working on three digit subtraction. What we used to call borrowing is now called ungrouping because you ungroup the tens and hundreds and move ten or ten hundreds into the next place value. Thanks for the support you have been giving your child at home! We will keep looking at addition and subtraction and how they are related into next week.

Science

Our study of plants continues. This week we learned about selection and how scientists and farmers select for traits that they want and breed new plants. Ask your child why there are red and green apples. Next week we will try to figure out how to make the biggest fruit in the world.

Website

Have you had a chance to look at our website? http://jharwood80.wixsite.com/mysite You can also access it from the Easthampton Schools website under For Parents - Teacher websites. On the page, you can find our weekly spelling lists, homework assignments, items to donate to the class, helpful resources and more! Please let me know if you want me to include anything else on the site.

Yours truly,

Jessica Harwood