Happy Monday 🙂

Henry Ford’s STEAM night of science/math activities is tomorrow, Tuesday 2/11 from 5-7. Please come and see all the cool things to do. I’ll be in the gym with a soccer activity. Hope to see you there!

Our last day of WIDA testing is tomorrow morning first thing for the writing portion.

It is Valentine’s Day Friday 🙂 Your child may bring in small treats and valentines to share with the class. We have 21 students. I’ll send home a list of the students names today.

We’re in our last week of our Solving Problems through Technology reading/writing unit. The students will finish up their opinion writing on the topic of what they think the most important invention is. Our spelling words focus on the vowel spelling “ou” “ow”: out, count, round, mouth, house, now, brown, town, owl, cow

We’re finishing up our math unit on using addition and subtraction strategies to solve problems both in number form and word form.

No School next week Feb. 17-21 for mid winter break. See you back on Feb. 24.

Enjoy your week!

Happy February!! 🙂 We will have Valentine’s Day Fun on Valentine’s Day February 14. Please feel free to send in valentines, candy of your choice to pass out to the class.

Late Start this Wednesday. School begins at 9:35

Please send in the field trip money $5 and permission slips as soon as possible. The office needs to get the money to Cranbrook to hold our spot. If you’ve already sent it in, Thanks You 🙂

We are running low on kleenex so if you have an extra box at home, we’d appreciate you donating it to us. Otherwise, students have to use paper towel to blow their noses.

WIDA testing begins today. We’ll have testing today, Monday, Wednesday and again next week Tuesday. Mornings only.

We continue our reading unit of Solving Problems through Technology. We’re reading about different inventors and their inventions. Our spelling words this week focus on the spelling: oy/oi: boy, toy, enjoy, joyful, join, noise, point, voice, boil, coin.

We continue to learn how to write a strong opinion paper giving 2-3 reasons. Our topic is an invention we think is the most important.

Our math lessons this week focus on subtracting 2 digit numbers with “unbundling” (borrowing,trading). The students are also learning how to show their thinking in drawings, using disks or other models.

“Why Do Communities Need Laws?” is what we’ll be discussing in social studies. How Earth’s surface changes quickly is our learning for the next few weeks in science.

Enjoy the week!

I just sent home a permission slip to be signed and returned with $5 to go to the Cranbrook Science Museum in May.

This is a new form and I forgot to write to please return the money and form by this Friday Jan. 31. Cranbrook needs the money to hold our date.

Any parent that wants to come needs to make sure the Background Check form is filled out and approved.

Thanks!

Here we are in the last week of January, wow!

We’re beginning a new reading and writing unit called Solving Problems through Technology. I think the students will enjoy reading and writing on this topic. Spelling words this week: hope, shape, baseball, mistake, inside, candle, apple, little, table, purple.

Our math work this week continues our learning of strategies to add and subtract 2 and 3 digit numbers within 200.

Social studies will focus on why do people form governments? We’ll be learning about laws (rules in a community) and that the government provides things for us to be safe such as traffic lights, cleaning the community, providing fire and police service.

How the Earth changes is our ongoing topic for science. Slow and quick changes are being learned. This week we’ll be reading about slow changes such as erosion from water and wind.

PTA is now weekly selling popcorn each Friday. Money is being collected throughout the week $1 per bag.

Enjoy your week 🙂

I hope your children enjoyed some fun in the snow this weekend 🙂 Great fun being bundled up making snowmen, throwing snowballs then coming in for some hot chocolate!

Another short week with today’s 1/2 day.

We are beginning a new unit in social studies and learning about how citizens live together in a community. Our first lesson is about diversity, which is very appropriate since yesterday was Martin Luther King Jr. day.

We’re continuing our reading unit and learning about different characters point of view of the same event. Again, very appropriate to this week’s national holiday. Our spelling test this week focuses on the “air” sound in phonics spelling 4 different ways: hair, stairs, chair, care, share, square, pear, bear, wear, where. I am continuing to assess students for their current reading level using the district assessment pieces.The test will be on Friday. For our writing focus this week is an opinion piece. The topic will be to write your opinion about recommending a friend read the story Stone Soup. Students will take a stand and write 2-3 appropriate reasons from the story about if they would or would not.

Our math unit continues with learning and practicing different addition and subtraction strategies for 2 and 3 digit numbers within 1000. Students are working hard at learning this concept and are catching on to the “bundling/unbundling”.

Our science focus is developing a plan to show that water can create a canyon. Students worked in groups last week and will present their ideas this week. We’ll be doing an activity related to this idea hopefully this week.

Enjoy the week!

1/2 Day this Friday Jan. 17. School dismisses at 11:45. No lunch will be served. No school Monday Jan. 20 and 1/2 day Tuesday Jan. 21–school dismisses at 11:45.

Due to these 2 short weeks, no spelling test this week. I’ll be using these 2 weeks to teach the one week’s worth of lessons. The test will be next week.

NWEA reading test this week Tuesday & Wednesday first thing in the morning. I was happy to see the seriousness and care students put into the math test so I am expecting the same for the reading one. But, please remember, these tests are only 1 of many used throughout your child’s school career to get a picture of their learning. As usual, please see that they get a good night’s sleep.

I’m also assessing students individually to get an accurate reading level=DRA reading level. Nice growth is being seen so far.

Library book check out is this Thursday. If books are at home, please remind your child to bring them back to school so they can check out new ones.

We’re about 1/2 way through our math unit of learning different strategies for adding and subtracting within 1,000. You can see from the homework, we’re getting into the more traditional subtraction strategy of borrowing/trading as it used to be called.

We’re finishing up our Social Studies unit this week and in Science students will be designing an experiment to show if water can create a canyon.

Enjoy your week!

Happy New Year and Welcome Back! However your break was spent with friends and family, I hope you were able to enjoy some time with love and laughter.

Please have your child return the packet this week. I hope they found it fun and got them thinking.

We are scheduled for the first set of NWEA testing this week Tuesday and Wednesday morning. Please be sure your child is on time for school because our time scheduled is first thing both days. We’ll begin with the math portion this week and take the reading portion next week Tuesday and Wednesday. Also please make sure your child gets a good nights sleep each night then has a healthy breakfast. Getting back in the routine of school can be difficult after a break but we’ll do it 🙂

We’ll continue our reading unit focusing on the question how can a story change depending on who tells the events? This is the strategy of point of view. We’re using one of my favorites this week: Stone Soup. The spelling words again are r-controlled vowels ear, eer, ere: year, near, clear, fear, ears, hear, deer, cheer, steer, here.

Math will continue with the skills of using different strategies to add and subtract 2 and 3 digit numbers.

Social studies will again pick up with learning about a community and how that community has changed over the years. I like to bring in Dearborn history.

Science also is focused on the Earth’s changes that shape the surface.

P.S. We’re still collecting plastic caps and paper tubes.

Enjoy your week 🙂

Hard to believe that this should be the last post for 2019! The year so far has flow by.

Thank you for your understanding as I was off last week dealing with my mom’s health issues.

Late Start Wednesday Dec. 18. School begins at 9:35.

Monday is PJ Day again 🙂 Slippers optional but remember to wear shoes or boots to school and change into slippers once at HF.

I’ll get the students back into our regular routine because I understand how disruptive having a substitute in can be.

In our math units, we’ll learn how to add 2 digit numbers the traditional “up and down” way. We’re learning to draw the numbers first using dots in the place value spots to look for a group of 10.

We’re starting a new reading and writing unit. Our main focus for this week and then when we come back is characters point of view of events in stories. The spelling words all focus on the “or” spelling/sound: fork, born, more, store, oars, roar, horn, before, sports, wore. The test will be just the words this week. The writing will be opinion this unit.

We’ll be learning about regions in social studies and continue bodies of water and land forms for science.

We’ll have a little holiday fun late Friday afternoon 🙂

I truly appreciate all of you and hope nothing but the best for you in 2020.

Bingo For Books 🙂 This Wednesday 4:45-5:45 Come Join the Fun! (It’ll be in the main cafeteria)

This week for our reading strategy, we will continue finding key details and retelling events in order using new texts this week while continuing the theme of plants and animals and their habitats. The spelling words this week focus on ir, er, ur: bird, hurt, her, nurse, girl, shirt, burn, third, never, winter. I’ve been using a combination of testing with the words in sentences or if time is an issue, just the words on their own.

For our writing strategy, we’ll be organizing our ideas for our informational report.

Math continues with learning and using strategies for addition and subtraction within 100 to solve word and number problems. Most of the work is getting a bit tougher so I’m taking a bit of time and not expecting the front and backs of the homework to be done. I usually have had the students circle the problems needed to be done and the items not circled are optional.

We’ll be talking about transportation in our community for social studies and continuing with bodies of water on the Earth’s surface as well as how land forms are formed and what does water have to do with that process?

Have a great week!

If your child would like to purchase anything from the PTA book fair, we’ll be going today to see what’s available but if they have money, they can buy today. We’ll also be going Monday.