Blog Archives

Week of March 16, 2015

3/16/2015

Reading Comprehension/Science
    This week we are beginning to learn about landforms and forces that cause changes to the Earth's surface.

PTA Panera Family Fun Night
    Join us at Panera TONIGHT for a Family Fun Night. Panera will donate a portion of your purchase to our PTA! This is a great and tasty way to help fund our PTA programs. Have you tried their new soba noodle soup with chicken? My new favorite! Students: Bring me your receipt showing me that you were there between 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. to get a Homework Pass.

Jump Rope for Heart
    Our annual Jump Rope for Heart fundraiser to benefit the American Heart Association is coming up on April 3. The info went home with your student today. Please consider donating to this worthy cause to research ways to eliminate heart disease. You can even make your own webpage to help raise money! There are incentives for raising various amounts of money. All instructions and details are on the flyer I sent home today.

Color-a-thon
    Our first Color-a-thon fundraiser is set for April 24. It should be a blast! All you have to do is collect donations for our school PTA. You get to participate in the Color-a-thon AND earn prizes for your donations. It sounds really fun to get covered with powdered colors. It comes off of skin and most fabrics (it's mostly cornstarch), but can stain, so I would wear older clothes that day. The flyer went home last week for this special event.

Week of March 9, 2015

3/8/2015

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Fun and Educational Websites

Here are some great websites you might want to bookmark.

FactMonster. This site is great for math facts practice and all kinds of information searching, biographies, science, social studies, etc. Wow!

SpellingCity.com. This site is great to practice spelling, phonics, and vocabulary.

First School Years. This site has lots of free resources and worksheets for all subject areas.

Parent Conference Schedule

    Please keep in mind that we have only 20 minutes together to discuss your student's academic progress this trimester. If you are running late, we may need to schedule another time to talk so that the next parents have an "on time" appointment. Many of you need to run straight from one teacher to the next, so it is important for me to keep to the schedule.
    If you should need to cancel and/or reschedule your appointment, please call the school office at 661-299-1790 to leave me a message, or email me.

Click here to download a .pdf of the schedule.

Test & Quizzes
    Instead of sending home tests and quizzes in a packet, I am sending them home as soon as I get them graded so you can get more timely information. Please check your student's folder every day for tests and quizzes to review. Keep an eye out for any papers marked "sign and return." As usual, praise the successes, and review any areas your student may struggle with.

Literacy Week
    Last week's literacy week events were a lot of fun for students and staff alike. It kicked off with Read Across America day on the birthday of Theodore Seuss Geissel (Dr. Seuss), March 2. Did you know that Seuss actually rhymes with "voice?" We were lucky enough to have Mrs. Barbara Beck, a retired Fair Oaks teacher, and Jimmy Warshawsky, who was on MasterChef Jr. come to our class to read aloud to the class. In the afternoon, we had time to relax in the classroom to share our favorite books with classmates.
    During the week we had a Reader Leader come in to read aloud from some previous Young Author books. On Thursday, a group of student council members visited us to present a readers' theater version of The Cat in the Hat. On Friday, teachers could come to school dressed as their favorite literary character; I dressed as Frodo Baggins. We also had a Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) time from 11:20-11:30, when we ALL stopped whatever we were doing for ten minutes of reading.

Science
    We are starting our new unit on Earth Science. We will be focusing on forces that cause changes in Earth's surface.

Important vocabulary.
Students should focus on the causes and effects of each force below:
glaciers
weathering
erosion
volcanoes (magma, lava)
earthquakes (plate tectonics)
wind

Students should know the layers of the Earth and some facts about each one:
crust
mantle
outer core
inner core

Students should know the characteristics of these landforms:
lake
river
mountain
plain
ocean
island
peninsula

Students should know about the rock cycle:
igneous
sedimentary
metamorphic

Math
    We are beginning Unit 5, Time and Graphs. Students should be able to:
    1.    read and show time on an analog clock to the nearest five minutes
    2.    know the difference between A.M. and P.M.
    3.    understand relationships of time and the calendar
           • one hour = 60 minutes
           • one day = 24 hours
           • one week = 7 days
           • one year = 365 days
           • one year = 12 months
    4.    spell the days of the week
    5.    spell the months of the year
    6.    read a calendar (ex.: What is the date of the third Wednesday in February? How many days are in March? What day of the week is March 18? How many Thursdays are there in April?)
    7.    read and create pictographs (picture graphs) and bar graphs (horizontal and vertical)
    8.    compare amounts on graphs
    9.    solve one- and two-step story problems based on a graph
    10. make a table from given data
    11.   use the table to create a graph
    12.   create a table and graph based on a survey


Important Vocabulary
analog clock
digital clock
minute hand
hour hand
A.M.
P.M.
pictograph
picture graph
bar graph
horizontal
vertical
survey
data
compare
calendar
table

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