Hello Everyone,

I hope everyone enjoyed the weekend. I am excited to get into our first full week of school! We are finished with NWEA testing and we will be starting to get into our normal weekly routines. We will start a new part of our social studies on Friday. The majority of our social studies this year is about Michigan. For this reason, each Friday during our social studies time we will be doing what I call “Michigan Made Fridays”. We will have an edible product that is produced or made in Michigan. Before the students get to try it, they will research the location and history of the company. They have a map they will record each company on and the historical details they find interesting. Students will have a few minutes to sample the product and then they will have to record sensory details about the item. They will record things like how it smells, how it tastes, how it sounds and others. It will tie in our social studies and our writing/reading into one lesson. This week I will be providing the Michigan Made item for each student but I am asking that if you would like to donate an item for a Friday, please let me know and I will schedule you. I will send home the Michigan Made bag early in the week with a list of items the students have already tried. I appreciate all offers to send the bag back with enough of the food/drink item for each student to have as a snack. Thank you in advance for helping with this project.

This week:

Spelling: Students will be studying words that have long and short /i/ sounds. Our pattern words are stick, pie, polite, spin, kick and our content words are number, count, chart, solve, estimate. As always the students will also be given 5 words they haven’t been given ahead of time on the day of the test. They can practice all of the words by visiting the link for Spelling City on the side of the blog. The students should know how to get to the website. For homework students should complete 3 different spelling menu items off of the menu and they should be all turned in together Friday morning.

Math: We are continuing to work on telling time and we will start looking at elapsed time. Students will be learning to think of the clock as a number line to help with elapsed time. You can help at home by asking students to use both digital and analog clocks to tell time for you.

Writing: We are finishing our first writing piece this week and students will begin writing narratives. We are continuing to work on using the writing process and students will be learning to hold writing conferences with myself and other students to get suggestions on their work.

Social Studies: We are working on using map skills and tools to describe how two areas of Michigan relate to each other. An example of this is saying that Traverse City is north-west of Detroit.

Science: Our unit on forces and motion continues as we start exploring magnets. Students are also working on the idea of what causes an object to move a greater distance. They looked at surfaces last week like ice, carpet and wood to explore movement. Ask them about their findings!

Daily 5: Students are going to be coming home with book bags this week of leveled books. Students need to read every night for 20 minutes, weekends included. We will start working in our book clubs and small groups. Students will each have a strategy they are focusing on to help improve their reading. I posted some information on reading at home on Class Dojo in the class feed.

Have a great week!