Synonym Rolls

This week our class has been learning about SYNONYMS. We learned that synonyms are two words that have the same meaning. We are encouraging students to use "juicy" words in their writing so we did a fun activity to get rid of using the same old words all the time. Students were asked to pick a worn-out word and then find synonyms for that word. Students used the thesaurus as well as the computer to find synonyms for their word. We enjoyed some Cinnabon cereal as we worked :). Synonym Rolls 1. Pre-heat brain to 100% 2. Add 1 "worn-out" word 3. Stir in a pinch of juicy words that mean the same as your "worn-out" word 4. Mix in a dash of words from the thesaurus 5. Serve with your daily writing and enjoy!

UNF Eco-Education Field Trip

Today we took a field trip to UNF to learn more about wildlife and nature while outdoors. Backyard Botany was a fun, interactive program that allowed the students to become botanists in the UNF Wildlife Sanctuary. Rangers led a hike during which parts of plants and flowers were interactively taught.  Together, we learned about the different properties of plants and garden ecosystems. 

  Learning about the different plant parts 

                A 600 year old tree 

            Our snake friend Jake 

The Jungle Journal - October 14th through 18th

Reader's Workshop

This week we continue our exploration of characters.  We will be recognizing how our personal experiences can help us understand and relate to characters on a deeper level.  It is important that students are not making superficial connections like “I have a dog, too,” or, “I’ve been to Texas, too.”  In this unit we are pushing students to recall a time when they have experienced a similar situation in order to draw upon their emotional memories.  This emotional connection to characters is what will help students empathize and connect to the text.  Student connections may begin, “This reminds me of…” and should transition into, “This makes me realize…(something about the character’s thoughts/feelings/motivations).”  Brain Builders will be coming home on Fridays and are to be turned in on Mondays for Monkey Moolah. We encourage your child to complete these for extra reading practice! 

Writer's Workshop

This week we will finish publishing our memoirs.  Students will work with a peer and in teacher lead small groups to make necessary changes to their pieces before we begin publishing our narratives. We will also be completing a self reflection about our published writing. Students will note their strengths of their pieces as well as something they can add to their narrative story next time. 

Skills

Students should study and complete one of the homework options for list 6. Our quiz will be Friday. The quiz will also cover our skills topic of the week, irregular past tense verbs.  Our daily skills sheet (in their ROAR folder) will serve as their study guide.  Please note that skills tests will now assess the current skill, as well as any past skills.  Skills addressed so far include:  Sentences vs fragments; Singular vs plural nouns; Possessive nouns; Action verbs; Past, present, future tense verbs

Math Workshop

Our Unit 3 End of Unit Assessment is scheduled for Tuesday, October 15th.  

The contents covered during this unit include understanding place value, addition strategies, subtraction strategies, and being able to identify an equation to match a story problem.  Your child can review any of the sheets in Unit 3 of their Math workbook or yellow packet found in their ROAR folder to prepare. 

Our next unit, beginning Wednesday, will focus on objects that come in groups, skip counting, and arrays to build an understanding of multiplication and division. 

Science

We are studying the three states of matter, solid, liquid, and gas.  We will discuss that water melts, freezes, boils, evaporates and condenses.  Try this fun and easy at home lab:  Get two cups.  Fill each cup with the same amount of water.  Mark the water level.  Put one cup in the freezer.  Put the other cup on a shelf.  Observe what happens to the level of water in each cup after 12 hours.  If your child writes a short summary of what happened (or you can email us pictures!), they will earn Monkey Moolah.   

Social Studies 

We are discussing the continents and oceans on our world map.  The quiz on Friday (10/18) will cover two weeks of material, including last week's map skills. 

 

Reminders:   

Don’t forget to bring in your small pumpkin for the Literary Pumpkin.  We will begin to paint and decorate our pumpkins on Thursday and Friday.                              

  

The last day of the first quarter grading period is Monday, October 21st.                                                                       

The field trip to UNF EcoAdventure & Wildlife Sanctuary is Tuesday, October 22^nd.