It’s almost time for our Valentine’s Day party! The DeWitt/Edwards house is having our party on Tuesday, February 14th. We will have time in the afternoon for passing out valentines to classmates and enjoying some sweet treats! If your child would like to bring valentines to school, they need to make sure they have one for every student in the class. You can find our class list below for addressing valentines. Your child may choose to decorate a box to put their valentines in, but that is not required. If your kiddo does not wish to decorate a box, he/she can bring a bag to school to put the valentines in to take home. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions!

Our week focused on multi-step word problems! Often times, these problems have hidden questions that we need to solve before we find our final answer. We worked on using a chart to decide what we already know, and what we still need to find. We practiced working around the room on various word problems. The kiddos also had to decide which operation to use, as these problems required them to use all four operations.

We reviewed this week with a study guide, and we took our test today. These test grades will be in the grade book under Term 4. Be on the lookout for those in the next week or so. Our next unit will be focused on algebra!

The students were very excited to start another unit of science this term! Our unit is all about different types of energy and energy transfers. We started with an introduction activity as to what the students think energy is, where it comes from, and how we know something has energy. The conversation we had was incredible! I was amazed at how much they knew already, without me saying a word!

We learned about two different kinds of energy: potential and kinetic. The students realized that potential energy is stored energy. It has the ability to use energy, but it is not at that moment. Some examples include, a parked bicycle, food, lights that are turned off, skier at the top of a hill, etc. They also learned that kinetic energy is energy in motion. This is the energy the class thought of when they gave me examples on the first day. Some examples include, electronics that are turned on, a person that is moving, a roller coaster going down a hill, etc.

Both classes took what they knew about kinetic and potential energy and created posters in groups with images cut out of magazines. We had a conversation after each group presented about some tricky examples (a moving car) that could be placed in both categories. We also talked about which type of energy was easier to find than the other. Ask your child at home for different examples of each type of energy that can be found at your house!

Reading: This week in reading, we dove deep in our Historical Fiction Unit. We will be focusing mainly on WWII, dabbing in both historical fiction novels, while researching with non-fiction. We started by looking at the When, Where and What of a story to get an idea of the feelings and facts from the book. We reviewed what a theme was and noticed that our WWII picture books all had very similar themes to them. We ended the week by fitting details of the story together and practicing ways to keep our pieces organized. While the students work independently in reading and writing, I am beginning to pull for their reading assessment.

Our new read aloud is one of my all time favorites, Number the Stars. Please be sure to ask your child what we are learning about. As they begin to read historical fiction books, usually the students have a lot of questions based on what was fact vs fiction.

Writing: Literary Essays are beginning this week. We started learning that a thesis is an idea which we support with evidence. The first lesson allowed us to use thought prompts to get our thinking moving. Then we moved into asking questions about the text. Finally, we ended the week by looking at character’s and came up with ideas (thesis) by looking at their actions, what they say, and how other characters view them.

Book Club: This week we finished up our Book Club book. For the students final project, they will be creating a graphic novel, or cartoon/comic strip based on the main events and characters for their group’s book. The students will be working independently. My goal is for this final project to be done in class by next week

Email: dewilyn@pewaukeeschools.org
Website: http://pewaukee.schoolwires.net/site/Default.aspx?PageID=1028
Phone: (262) 701-5557