Happy Spring Everyone!
As we enter the last trimester of our school year together, we continue to work hard in all areas. Here are a few of the skills and activities that we will be focusing on over this term~
Reading
In Fundations, we have been working with vowel teams to help students with decoding skills on long vowel words. We will begin a focus on suffixes (-ing, -ed, -ly) over the next 2 weeks. Our Fundations work has allowed many students to build confidence in their ability to independently use the skills learned to solve unknown words while reading, as well as spelling words while writing.
As students recognize more words instantly, and become more comfortable decoding words, they begin to read more difficult texts. It is important that students maintain good comprehension as reading levels increase, so we continue our lessons on retelling, using character names, discussing problems/solutions, and beginning, middle, endings.
Writing
Students have great ideas, and have developed their skills at getting words down on paper, so over the last term, we were focusing on adding details and creativity to writing. Our next writing unit will explore non-fiction conventions, such as table of contents, glossary, captions, etc. We will use the animal information that your child has collected to write a non-fiction piece all about the animal of choice, including many of these items.
Science
We are well into our vertebrate unit, studying fish, reptiles, amphibians, mammals and birds. Students are learning what the characteristics are for classifying animals into each group, how animal parents care for their offspring, habitats around the world and how animals change and grow. Hopefully animal projects are going well on the home front! Please remember that projects are due on April 8th and our animal fair, when families are invited in, will be on April 12th at 2:15.
Math
Our last math unit focused on number patterns, measurement and time to the half hour. We are now introducing geometry and exploring addition and subtraction strategies to secure fact power. During math intervention time, we are differentiating instruction to work on place value concepts, either to secure tens and ones, or expand to hundreds and thousands.
As the weather becomes nicer and snow melts (I am pretty sure it will eventually:) the mud will appear, so I would like to ask that you please make sure your child has boots for outdoor recess and a change of shoes for wearing within our room.
Thank you for your continued support!
Judy Dowe