Black History Month and Valentine's Day

Friday, February 10, 2017

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope that you had a safe and restful week with all of the snow days and delays! We only have a week before February vacation so next week will look at little different. Sharing next week will be book sharing so that students will have ideas for what to read over break.

Math

We are wrapping up our measurement unit next week and will take the unit test on Wednesday (most likely -- this may change to Thursday because of the snow days). Students will be tested on length, liquid volume, weight, time and elapsed time, and data collection and graphing. This week we have been working on making pictographs and understanding scaled bar graphs. Scaled bar graphs are another way to apply multiplication in the real world. Look at household products to review the different units of measure and their relative sizes. For example, would you measure a juice box in grams, kilograms, pounds, ounces, liters, milliliters, cups, or pints?

Writing

This week and next week we will be working on figuring out a clear plot for our fiction stories. I am encouraging students to think of the problem or conflict in their stories and how it is resolved to help them stay focused with their stories. Find out from your child what their story/ plot plan is and have them describe their characters to you.

Black History Month

Next week students will be reading a biography about a famous African American and creating a “trading card” to teach their peers about the person that they learned about. This will also be a way to practice our reading skill of reflecting on what we are learning and wondering from biographies. On Friday we will take time to share what we learned. We will also spend time next week discussing race and racism to bring awareness to prejudice and difference.

Science and Social Studies

We are wrapping up our first phase of force and motion this week and the beginning of next week. Students have been reading nonfiction about force and motion. When we return from break, we will switch back to social studies and learn about the American Revolution.

Valentine’s Day

For Valentine’s Day, students are invited to bring in Valentines for every student in the class. Our class list is on the back of this letter. It is perfectly okay to not bring in Valentines, but if your child wants to bring them in, please ensure that there is one for each of the 18 other students (there are 19 students in all). We will have a small celebration on Tuesday afternoon when we return from the library with an engineering activity, a drawing activity, a math challenge and some games for the whole class. If you would like to come join in the festivities, the party will be from 2:15-2:50 on Tuesday.

Friday Reward

As a class, we have been working on some New Year’s resolutions that the students identified. The resolutions include things like trying our hardest, listening respectfully, being kind, and taking care of classroom supplies. Each time I observe the class doing these things, I have been adding chips to a jar. The jar is almost full! The students suggested possible rewards for filling the jar, thought about how to combine ideas, and then voted on their favorite. The reward with the most votes will be a pajama day with stuffed animals and a movie. It looks like that will be happening next Friday, February 17.

Vacation Homework

Please ensure that your child is reading at least 20 minutes per day each night of vacation. I will send home a log next Friday.

Class List for Valentines

Please email me if you would like this list as I did not want to publish it on the internet.

Thanks!

Take care,

Jessica Harwood