December
Religion:
Unit 2 emphasizes the beliefs of our Catholic faith. The children will learn
the Apostles' Creed. They will need to recite the prayer before Christmas
break. We will also learn the characteristics of God and the mysteries of
our faith. The children will respond by deepening their love and desire to
be with God through prayer and the sacraments. We will receive the sacrament
of Reconciliation on December 9th.
Reading:
This month we begin Unit 3 which contains stories about learning from jobs
and other activities we do. We practice identifying the main idea in a story
and details to support the topic. The children learn to retell or summarize
the important elements in stories.
Phonics:
We'll begin Unit 4 practicing reading and writing contractions. The children
will write words with suffixes and identify their meanings. We continue to
practices writing plural nouns correctly.
English:
This month we begin our unit on verbs. The children will identify the tense
of the verbs. We'll also learn to identify action verbs and verbs of being.
They will also learn to use helping verbs and contractions correctly.
Spelling:
Lessons focus on irregular vowel sounds.
Handwriting:
We will continue cursive review.
Math:
We finish our unit on 2-3 digit addition and subtraction this month. We
begin identifying time to the minute on analog clocks. The children will
read and understand word problems to measure elapsed time. We also learn to
read and interpret a variety of graphs.
Science:
This month we'll explore the physical and chemical changes in matter. We
review the states of matter and investigate ways to change its form. The
children will learn the similarities and differences in solutions and
mixtures.
Social Studies: We begin this month with Unit 4, The History of
Communities. The children will learn ways to research the history of their
families and their community using the internet and library.
We also will learn the history of our Christmas traditions by "traveling" to
countries in Europe. The chidren will compare and contrast traditions and
customs in different countries.