Week of: March 20

 Upcoming Dates:

March 27-31 - Spring Break - No School
April 3 - Field Trip to The Museum of Science and Industry-(pack a nut-free lunch in a disposable bag)
April 4 - Teacher Institute Day - No School for Students
April 7 - No School - Non-Attendance Day
May 29 - Memorial Day - No School
June 9 - Last Day of School

*Italics are repeated from last week's blog.
Reading: We will be continuing with our reading unit: "Bigger Books Mean Amping Up Reading Power". This unit will focus on building reading fluency, understanding literary language, tackling longer books, and goal-setting. This week we will start to learn about "literary language", including: comparisons, invented words, and figurative language. The kids will zoom in on comparisons and try to figure out what the author really means. 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. 

Writing: We will continue our writing unit: "Writing About Reading".  This is actually a unit on opinion writing and using evidence to support our opinions.  This week we will learn that writers write with a specific audience in mind and think of ways to reach that audience.  We will also use a checklist to set goals for ourselves as writers.

Math:  This week we will continue with our math module, Module 7: "Problem Solving with Length, Money, and Data".  This week we will focus on coins and recognizing the value of different coins and how to add up coins to find the total. We will also work on solving word problems involving coins and bills. Finally, we will learn to solve word problems involving different combinations of coins with the same total value.

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.  Last week we continued with our science unit: "Pebbles, Sand, and Silt".  This unit focus on earth science and studying earth materials.  This past week we learned about what happens to rocks when they get wet.  The learned that running water is another source of weathering.  We have also continued to learn the locations of the 50 states.  This past week we added PA and DE to our growing list of states!