Mrs. Alabakoff's 4th/5th GradeDearborn Public Schools

Oct 12th Week of October 12th-16th

I hope everyone enjoyed the beautiful weekend!  I enjoyed the apple orchard with family and friends yesterday!  Lots of fun!

Reminders for the week:

Friday–Oct. 16th 11:45 dismissal

This week we are learning:

Spelling–Our focus this week is long and short e.  Students are learning how to transfer the spelling patterns of ea and ee to their writing.  Be sure to review the words each night and have your child come up with some of their own long and short e words.

Daily5/Cafe–We are focusing on folktales as our genre.  Students will explore their own folktales at their level.  Many students are also reading chapter books as well.  We will work on the strategy of making inferences within their folktales.   Students will also be identifying action verbs for work on writing.

Writer’s Workshop–We are finishing our descriptive pieces today and tomorrow.  After a short journal entry focusing on voice, we will move on to opinion writing.

Math–We are doing some last minute wrap up with bar graphs and will then move on to patterns and adding a subtracting multi-digit numbers.  Students should be practicing their basic facts to make adding and subtracting larger numbers easier.  We will most likely start our timed addition and subtraction tests on Thursday.  Your child will be learning different strategies to add and subtract these numbers and will be able to choose what works best for him/her.

Social Studies–Students are enjoying gaining more knowledge about Michigan.  This week we will learn about renewable and non-renewable resources and Michigan examples of each.  We will also learn about the positive and negative consequences of using these resources.   It is important that you ask your child about what he/she is learning.  It helps to reinforce the concepts.

Michigan Made this past week was  Flatout Bread.  Most of the companies we use have websites and usually give a short history of the company.  Check them out each week.

Thank you to Mrs. Mathis for setting up the sign up genius for donations!  Details will follow!

Enjoy your week!

Oct 6th Week of October 5th-9th

Hope everyone is enjoying this warm up for Fall!  I wish it wouldn’t get any colder than this, but it will!  Please make sure your child is dressed for the weather.  Even if it gets warmer in the afternoon, the mornings can be very chilly!  We try to get outside for fresh air and movement in the morning.

I will normally post the information for the week on Monday, but this Monday was especially busy!

Reminders:

Tomorrow–Late Start Wednesday–First bell rings at 9:35

This week we are learning:

Spelling:  Our focus this week is long and short o.  Students sort the words to identify the sound and also come up with other words that fit the pattern.  We also have 3 content words that may connect with what we are learning about in Math/Social Studies/Science.  It is important that they study the words each night for the test on Friday.   Students should be able to tell you what the spelling pattern is–for example: the magic e makes the vowel long, ow makes a long o sound….This is important because your child needs to be able to transfer this to his/her writing.

Daily5/Cafe–This week our focus is Realistic Fiction and we are also working on characters and their traits based on evidence in the story.  We will also work on Asking questions.  Students will be choosing their individual goals this week and next.

Be sure they are reading 20 minutes a night and they can tell you about what they are reading.

Writer’s Workshop–Students are working on a descriptive piece about their favorite place.  We focus on good leads, a good start to grab the reader’s attention.  We will be doing the district writing prompt this week as well.

Math–We have been working on time and elapsed time.  Hopefully, your child showed you how they “jump” on a number line to show how much time has elapsed.  They are getting quite good at it!  We will then move on to bar graphs.  Students will be able to get information from the graph, as well as a produce their own graph based on a set of data.

Social Studies–Currently, we are working geography in Michigan.  Students just finished up studying about landforms and water in Michigan.  This week we learn about the vegetation and climate of Michigan.

I alternate between Social Studies and Science for continuity.  When we finish geography we will move on to Science.

We also have been enjoying our Michigan Made Fridays!  We have sampled Better Made potato chips and Flat-out bread.

We welcome donations for Michigan Made also!  If you would like to send in a product let me know!  This helps to get your child involved in “Buy Michigan!”

Have a sunny week!

Oct 1st Summer Packet Pizza!

Forgot to announce today!  Oops!

Congratulations to the following students for completing their summer packet.  They will be having pizza with Mr. Attee tomorrow:

Emina

Olivia

Liam

Margaret

Chris

Billy

Great Job!

Sep 18th Open House

Thank you to all those who attended open house!  It was great to meet all the families and I am looking forward to a great year!

Sep 9th Just a Test!

Welcome to Third Grade!  If you subscribe to the blog, you will receive automatic updates!

Jun 3rd Field Day

Just a reminder:

Field Day tomorrow!   Students can bring a water bottle to the park!

Jun 1st Picnic!

For Picnic signup, there is a signup genius that has been sent out.  Please let me know if you haven’t received it and would like to donate to the picnic.  We are combining snacks with Ms. Morrison’s class.

Thank you in advance!

May 26th Spring Concert

Reminder:

Spring Concert tonight for grades 3-5 at 6 p.m.  Instrumental music will also be performing.

See you there!

May 11th Teacher Appreciation Thank You!

Thank you so much for the awesome teacher appreciation week!  The flowers the kids brought were so great and they brightened my day and the classroom.

Your support is so greatly appreciated!  I am fortunate to have such a great group of students and parents!

Dec 15th Third Grade Lansing Trip

Hopefully everyone saw the note about our trip with reminders.

In case you did not—Third graders should meet on Francis Street at 7:45.  They need to bring a bag lunch with a drink (no glass), marked with their name.  Students should also wear comfortable shoes and dress for the weather.   We should be back at school between 3:30 and 4:00.

Looking forward to a great trip!