Week of: February 21st

 Upcoming Dates:

Feb. 20 - President's Day - No School
Feb. 20-24 - Black History Week - Click here for more info.
March 27-31 - Spring Break - No School
April 4 - Teacher Institute Day - No School for Students
April 7 - No School - Non-Attendance Day

*Italics are repeated from last week's blog.
Reading: We will continue with our reading unit: "Studying Characters and Their Stories". This unit is all about characters and studying how they change and grow.  The students will be making lots of inferences and predictions in this unit! We will also work on writing complete answers to questions about our reading using the R.A.C.E. Strategy. You can click here to learn more about the RACE Strategy. This week we will work on how to summarize when we finish reading a whole story or book.  We will also begin working on discovering, and writing about, the "central message" in the books and stories that we read.  

Writing: We will be continuing our writing unit: "Writing Gripping Fictional Stories". This unit is all about character and plot development.  The kids always have so much fun making up their own characters and stories! This week we will start to wrap up our stories and think about how to make good endings.  We will also spend a lot of time sharing our work and doing independent writing.  "Publishing" day is coming soon! :) 

Math:  This week we will continue our math module, Module 4: "Addition and Subtraction Within 200 with Word Problems to 100".  This is a huge module that covers several different strategies for adding and subtracting larger numbers. Next week we will work on solving addition problems with up to 4 addends!  We will work on finding ways to make 10 and doubles to help with this task.  We will also switch back to subtraction and work on using number bonds to take from 100.

Social Studies/Science:  We will continue our learning about having a growth mindset all year long. However, we are also working on a social studies unit about the History of Technology.  We have started our new social studies unit: "The History of Technology".  This week the kids will continue to share the interviews that they did over Winter Break.  They will learn how technology has changed over time!   We have also continued to learn the locations of the 50 states.  This past week we added NY and NJ to our growing list!  Ask your child about Chef MIMAL's "New Yorkie" and the cool new basketball "Jersey" that he's wearing!