Wow, it feels like we are moving at the speed of light heading towards the end of the year! That hasn't stopped us as we continue to hammer away at our curriculum.
Happy Earth Week! Thursday afternoon the students met with an arborist to plant a red oak tree. Following the planting, we had an Earth Day assembly back at school, involving several related activities. The students are being encouraged to drop off any clothing items they no longer use into the bin in the Rutledge Hall parking lot. The clothing will be recycled and portions of the proceeds will go to Rutledge Hall.
I can't believe that another week has gone by. It seems as though we are flying through each week!
This week the students and I have continued to work on summarizing during Reading. The students are learning to better identify the main ideas and important details in order to help them summarize their stories. In Math, the students continue to work hard on the different operations involved with Fractions. Learning to properly use commas has been the focus of our Language Arts lesson.
During Social Studies, the students wrote letters to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella on behalf of Christopher Columbus. In groups the students created a mural displaying their letters and Christopher Columbus's finding during his journey. They did an amazing job on both the mural and working together as teams.
They students will begin their explorer research next week. Each student will be assigned an explorer that they will be responsible for researching. They are also responsible for completing a scrapbook page in which they will display their research information. I will give the students written instructions of the requirements, as well as, providing an explanation in class and past examples. I'm looking forward to seeing their creative pages! These scrapbook pages will be due on or before Tuesday, April 27.
Students were given instructions for their genre book report of the month. This month the students will be creating "Cereal Box Book Reports." This report requires an EMPTY cereal box. Their report will be due on Monday, May 3rd. Next week, on Thursday, April 22, we will attend our Earth Day assembly. The students were asked to write a letter highlighting the importance of recycling. They will be delivered to the Lincolnwood Director of Parks and Recreation, requesting additional recycle bins be placed at various locations throughout the village.
April 9, 2010 Dear Parents, It’s hard to believe that spring break has come and gone. Before we know it summer will be here. Now that break is over the students have sprung back into action!
We will begin to work on our summarizing skills during reading. We will read the picture book “Goin’ Someplace Special” and work on summarizing the story as a class. The students will use their summarizing skills to retell the story “Sing to the Stars” in illustrations.
