Students in kindergarten will pay attention to the words in books in order to develop pre-reading skills. Students will learn to read text from left to right, one word after another, and with one-to-one correspondence. They'll also draw on their growing knowledge of high-frequency words and of the alphabetic code to read familiar patterned books. In writing, kindergartners will explore how writers can “tell” about topics, like important places or things, by thinking about the parts of the topic and drawing and writing about them on pages in a book. They will write their own pattern books using a bank of familiar high-frequency words and their knowledge of the alphabetic code. In math, students will compare numbers to ten, as well as classify and count data. As we continue our science unit, Needs of Plants and Animals, the students will be given opportunities to form their own investigations examining whether plants need light and water to grow. Using the nonfiction book, Handbook of Plants, students find evidence about how plants use their leaves, stems, and roots to get the light and water they need to live and grow.
Students in first grade, the newly appointed Word Detectives, will take an even closer look at vowels and strategies for solving longer words. The Word Detectives will investigate silent e, the ee and ea vowel teams, vowel flexing, double consonants, and compound words. In writing, students will use mentor texts to guide their own how-to writing. Students will be encouraged to include comparisons, warnings, and tips for their readers. Math work will include learning strategies for adding and subtracting to 20. In science, our Plants and Animal Defenses unit will culminate with students creating a model of a marine animal and explaining how that animal’s defense works. First graders will end the month exploring our favorite snowman stories.
Students in second grade will be strengthening their informational reading skills by looking closely at nonfiction conventions like an index, a glossary, and even captions. We’re excited to continue using strategies to help us become stronger readers! Students are also writing Nonfiction Chapter Books in writing workshop. The children are choosing their own focus and sharing knowledge through their writing. We have books about basketball, sewing, Cape Cod, Brooklyn, dancing… all kinds of amazing topics. We can’t wait to share all we know with our classmates through our amazing writing. In math, we’re getting ready to start exploring subtraction. We’ll spend time learning all kinds of strategies to help us understand this important math skill. The second graders will also be finishing their investigation of Properties of Materials. As glue engineers, the students have explored different mixtures and ingredients to make a sticky, strong glue. We’ll be sending home a special project that was created using the glue students made that demonstrates all they learned in this unit!
Students in third grade will continue their work with informational texts in both reading and writing workshops. Our information writers will use “Boxes and Bullets” to help plan the main or central idea as well as the supporting details in their informational writing pieces. Information readers will also think about places in their reading that are worth stopping, thinking, talking, and jotting. In math, third graders will develop an understanding of the concept of area and a unit square. They will learn different ways to measure the area of a rectangle and relate area to multiplication as well as represent data on picture graphs and bar graphs. Students will continue their investigations on Balancing Forces. They will learn through firsthand experiences and come to understand how forces can cause stability or change in an object’s motion. Stay tuned to hear how third graders answer the question, “Do you have to apply a force to make an object move?”
Students in fourth grade will use their learning from the non-fiction reading lessons on text structures and work in groups to complete a research project on Indigenous people. In writing, students will construct a second persuasive essay with a continued focus on making a claim and supporting that claim with evidence. In Math, students will learn different strategies for dividing 2-,3-, and 4-digit dividends by one-digit divisors. We are wrapping up our Science Energy Unit and will work as engineers to use their understanding of electrical systems, designing solutions to help the fictional town of Ergstown solve their frequent blackout problem.
Students in fifth grade will focus on reading non-fiction books and articles, noting different text structures and multiple main ideas. Fifth grade journalists will be on the lookout for stories around our school, writing about events, people, and newsworthy things they notice. While fifth graders develop their calculation skills, applying multiplication and division with whole numbers and decimals, they will continue to work on solving multi-step word problems. In science this month, we will wrap up our exploration of the night sky, stars, and constellations. A field trip to the planetarium at the Hudson River Museum will culminate our study towards the end of the month. After our study of migration and settlement in the Western Hemisphere and how this led to the ancient civilizations of the Maya, Inca, and Aztec, fifth-graders will be making artifacts for an archeological museum.
