Week of January 19-23

Our newest Leader of the Week is...

 

 

Chelsey!!!

Chelsey is an excellent model for habit 5, seek first to understand, then to be understood.  She is a good listener who follows directions well and waits patiently to add in her two cents.  Chelsey realizes the importance of understanding before asking that others hear her point of view, which also makes her excellent at debating!

Classroom Guidance
Mrs. Hammons will be visiting our classroom two times this week to teach the kids about bullying.

Homework
This week's reading assignments will be on Edmodo.  There will be no reading log.  However, please encourage your child to continue reading BOB books in their spare time.  The BOB competition between classes is coming up in mid-February!

Writing Contests
We have two exciting opportunities upon us to compete in writing contests this spring!  The first contest is a poetry writing contest, and let me tell you, parents, your kids are excellent poets!  We spent a couple of days writing poetry last week and their word choice and use of poetic devices was phenomenal!  Some of their poems actually gave me chills!  Here is the link for that contest.  Submissions are due March 9th.  http://www.ket.org/writerscontest/

The second contest is a story writing contest.  Here is the link for it.  Submissions are due April 11th.  http://www.ket.org/writerscontest/


Please encourage your child to take part in at least one of these contests! 

What are we learning this week?

 

Reading:  During ELA this week we will build background on the Civil War including the causes and major events people of the Civil War such as Abraham Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation.
Writing:  In writing this week, we will explore passage-based On Demand Writing.  This is a type of On Demand Writing that requires the children to read a passage and respond to a prompt while using evidence from the passage.  Responses could take many forms from a letter to an article to an essay.  We will look at examples, practice lifting lines, and a complete a practice passage-based prompt (for which they will be given 90 minutes) on Thursday.
Math:  Our focus in math this week will continue to be on fractions.  The kids will learn how to find a fraction of a whole, how to order fractions, whole numbers, and decimals, and we will review how to simplify fractions.
Social Studies:  This week's focus will be on the Revolutionary War as we explore why the Continentals (who originally seemed like an inferior army) were able to succeed against the powerful British Army.