From the Desk of Mrs. Larned...

October

• Wednesday, October 16th: Picture Retakes
• Friday, October 18th: 1/2 Day (afternoon staff PD)
• Monday, October 21st: No School (Fall Break)

• Wednesday, October 23rd: 1/2 Day (Parent-Teacher Conferences 12:30-5:00pm)
• Thursday, October 24th: Parent-Teacher Conferences (4:00-6:30pm)

• Thursday, October 31st: Halloween Party

**Look for Sign-Up Genius Links/ Forms for the upcoming conferences and Halloween party to be coming your way next week 🙂

Beginning the second week of school, homework began getting sent home with your student each afternoon (*Monday-Thursday). Many students have done a great job of getting their daily homework placed into their yellow folder and completed at home, before returning it the next morning. Thank you so much for your help with ensuring that work is getting done and returned on a regular basis! I do realize that life gets very busy and it may be tricky to find the opportunity to squeeze in extra study time. Although, establishing this foundation of responsibility now will most definitely help to set your student up for success in years to come as they enter middle school and high school. Not to mention, it will help to reinforce the skills being taught in our classroom each week. 🙂

We recently wrapped up our first Math module of the school year pertaining to calculating the area of rectangles, as well as finding the factor pairs and multiples of given numbers. In our second unit of study, we have begun learning all about fractions and how to identify fractions of a whole in a diagram and on a number line. If you get a moment, ask your student to see if they can explain what the numerator and denominator of a fraction are.

In the area of Language Arts, we have been continuing to build our reading stamina and strengthen our predicting, inferring, and overall reading comprehension skills. Each day, students participate in a silent (independent) reading period, individualized IXL Language Arts activity, and participate in a small- group reading lesson. Last week, we will officially launched our second Wonders (Language Arts curriculum) unit focusing on expository text and summarizing our new knowledge using important details from these informational texts.

In the area of writing, we are working to publish our personal narrative essays. Next up, we will begin learning how to draft our own compare-and-contrast essays!

Next week, we will officially wrap up our first Science unit pertaining to the study of rocks! Over the course of the past 4 weeks, we have been learning all about the patterns of Earth's features, weathering, erosion, natural hazards, and the creation of fossils.

Next up, our class will be delving into a Social Studies unit pertaining to all things government! To begin this unit, students will be asked to imagine a classroom, community, and world without any rules and laws. We will also imagine what it would look like/sound like, as well as brainstorm what types of issues we think might arise if everyone was able to do whatever they wanted. From there, we will begin to discuss why there is a need for laws/rules to abide by and how the government aids in the law making/abiding process. All of these discussions will help to prepare us for our upcoming field trip to the State Capitol in Lansing coming up in November! (*More details regarding our field trip to follow soon!)

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This year, I’ll be using ClassDojo to share fun moments from the classroom and keep you up-to-date with info and events. You can use the QR code below to get signed up, if you haven't already. See you on the ClassDojo app! 🙂