I hope your child was able to share how our first field trip went. The students were very well behaved and seemed to really enjoy the musical format. Right away a few students wanted to check out the book, The Phantom of the Auditorium. There were only two copies, so your child was the lucky one if they quickly snagged it!

We have started Unit 2 this week, which is a multiplication unit. We started by talking about area and making area models for single-digit numbers. This is something that was taught in 3rd grade, so we simply reviewed the idea. The kiddos then started drawing area models for two-digit by one-digit numbers, and they were loving it! This method of multiplying is something that might be new to you as parents. I never learned it in school either, but it is a great way of starting our multiplication unit. It shows students why we use the standard algorithm the way we do. With that being said, I encourage you to have your children show you this new method of multiplying! I'm sure they would be so excited to be able to teach you something!

Our Human Body unit has started this week. We learned about the skeletal system and why it is important. The students started the first page in their interactive science notebooks, which shows diagrams of our different body systems (circulatory, muscular, skeletal, respiratory, etc.) and we label different parts of the body and their functions. Our first notebook page explained the importance of the skeletal system: to support our bodies, to help with movement, and to protect our internal organs. We also labeled important bones on our skeleton such as ribs, humerus, femur, pelvis, and skull.

We started to learn about joints in the body and we will be discussing three types of joints that our body has. The three joints we will learn are the ball and socket, hinge, and pivot joints. We moved around the room to try and figure out where our joints are and which joints belong in each of the three categories.

Reading: This week in Reading, we started diving deep in our fiction unit. We began by looking at a short clip of The Chronicles of Narnia. The main character Lucy plays hide and seek with her siblings and magically walks into a wintery wonderland, which happens to be another world. This is exactly what amazing readers do. They “walk” into their book and picture themselves as the characters. This sounds obvious, but most of our readers are not aware of this strategy for comprehension. A way to check your child’s comprehension is to ask them how clear the “movie” is inside their head while they are reading, or if they are able to see themselves as one of the characters. We moved on to practice feeling empathy for our characters through personal experiences. We ended the week by “reading with our minds on fire” and sharing those experiences we each had when we can’t put the book down! Sadly, not all of our readers have had that experience yet, but we were all able to brainstorm ideas where we felt our “minds on fire” with our current read aloud, Out of My Mind. Be sure to ask your child when they had their minds on fire with a book they read!

Writing: The students finished up their character work on Monday. We needed to make sure our character had motivations and struggles, as well as, a realistic personality. We had a lot of “too perfect” characters, which we had to say wasn’t completely realistic. The students were then able to create their story mountain, and map out the plot of their tale. The students moved on to review what makes a good lead and how we need to show vs. tell. We read a summary of The Three Billy Goats Gruff (telling) and then read an example with dialogue, great descriptive words, and emotion (showing). The students have some great ideas and stories. Please ask your child what their realistic fiction story is all about.

Email: dewilyn@pewaukeeschools.org
Phone: (262) 701-5557