Here’s what we’ve been up to, and what we will be doing in class.
Riggs
We’re continuing to learn new spelling words and the marking rules that go with them. If you haven’t already, please view the video that I created which shows how to do Riggs spelling homework (and marking rules 101!). You can access it on the right sidebar of this blog.
Support Idea(s):
- Have your student:
- Review all of the phonogram we’ve learned so far (#1-55) using your set of phonogram cards. (Winter break is coming and we don’t want the students to forget what they’ve learned while they’re away!)
- Read through all of the spelling words learned so far.
Writing
Using the IEW Key Word Oultine (KWO) format, the students have recently rewritten (in picture book format) the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. These stories will be coming home as soon as I am able to take a closer look at all of them! We’re also continuing to look at many different texts as we work on these writing skills:
- Retell main events and write KWOs using symbols and words
- Retell stories from our KWOs
- Identify verbs, adjectives, nouns, and adverbs
Support Idea(s):
- Have your student:
- Tell you a story out loud. Make sure their story has a beginning, middle, and end. Write the story down for them (unless they’re ready to write and spell the words correctly) and let them illustrate it. Have them choose an appropriate title for it.
Reading
During read aloud, we’ve been working on comparing and contrasting and identifying the problem and resolution in different stories. As we move through our history and science units, the students are also being exposed to a lot of informational text. During informational read alouds, the students have been identifying the table of contents and drawing and labeling information that we learn from the text.
Support Idea(s):
- Don’t forget about Raz-kids!
- Have your student read, and then re-read, and then re-read the same text. This promotes confidence and fluency!
Math
Here are the concepts we have been, and will be, working on in math:
- *coins are used to count amounts of money
- the associative property of addition allows the grouping of addends together in any way we would like when we add
- a polygon can be identified by its number of sides and angles
Support Idea(s):
- *Have your student work through and answer these questions:
- How can I find out how much a collection of coins is worth?
- What strategy can I use to add a list of numbers?
- How do I describe place figures such as rectangles, pentagons, and hexagons?
History
We recently concluded our unit on two ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Now we’re working our way through two micro units before winter break: (1)Modern Mexico and (2)Three World Religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Here are the main ideas that we will be, and have been, focusing on in these units:
- *MODERN MEXICO
- Geography
- North American continent, locate Mexico relative to Canada and the United States
- Central America, Yucatan Peninsula
- Pacific Ocean, Gulf of Mexico, Rio Grande
- Mexico City
- Culture
- Indian and Spanish heritage
- Traditions: fiesta, piñata
- National holiday: September 16, Independence Day
- *THREE WORLD RELIGIONS: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
- Judaism
- Belief in one God
- Story of the Exodus: Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt
- Israel, Chanukah, Star of David, Torah, synagogue
- Christianity
- Christianity grew out of Judaism
- Jesus, meaning of “messiah”
- Christmas and Easter, symbol of the cross
- Islam
- Originated in Arabia, since spread worldwide
- Followers are called Muslims
- Allah, Muhammad, Makkah, Qur’an, mosque
- Symbol of crescent and star (found on the flags of many mainly Islamic nations)
*taken directly from the Core Knowledge Sequence
Thank you for reading this and for your continual support of your student,
Mrs. Varis
