Week of: February 16th

 Upcoming Dates:

Feb. 15 - President's Day - No School
Feb. 22-26 - Parent/Teacher Conference Week- Thursday/Friday Early Dismissal at 11:00
Mar. 29-Apr.2 - Spring Break - No School
Apr. 6 - No School (Election Day)

*Italics are repeated from last week.
Reading: We have started work with our new reading unit: "Bigger Books Mean Amping Up Reading Power". This unit is all about increasing reading fluency, understanding literary language, keeping track of longer books, and setting reading goals. This week we will learn about dialogue tags and how those can give us clues about how our voices should sound while reading. (Dialogue tags are the part that comes after a characters quote, for example: he shouted or she said in a soft voice.) We will also learn about how to use meaning to read fluently and the importance of reading at a "just-right" reading pace. 

Writing: We will start an exciting new writing unit: "Poetry: Big Thoughts in Small Packages". This unit is all about writing poetry and focusing on line breaks, rhythm, and meaningful phrases. Making sure our words rhyme is completely optional (poetry is so much more than that!).This week the kids will learn that poets see the world through special lenses.  They will see with both their hearts and minds, writing about the world in fresh, unusual ways. We will also work on listening for line breaks.

Math:  We will continue our work with Module 4: "Addition and Subtraction within 200 with Word Problems to 100". This week we will learn to look for ways to make 10 or 100 when adding multiple numbers together.  We will also start working on how to subtract with regrouping without using the place value chart. 

Social Studies/Science:  We will add new states to our United States map practice and continue to learn about the history of technology. Ask your child about these states: DE and PA.  DeLaware is in the shape of an "L". If you look closely, you can see two "pencils" in the state of Pennsylvania.  For social studies, we are learning about the history of technology.  Students are also sharing their technology interviews with each other.