We celebrated Mrs. Smits and her new citizenship this week! Although Mrs. Smits has lived in Michigan since she was 6 years old, she was born in Canada and was a Canadian citizen. We presented her with a flag from all of us, waved our flags as we sang her a couple of songs, and watched bits of her naturalization ceremony from that morning at the Gerald Ford Museum. Congratulations to Mrs. Smits for being a proud American now!
This week in reading we looked at how the setting and the mood of the story can help us figure out the meaning and build our interpretation of a book. We looked at all of the individual responses we have had throughout the book and tried to connect them together. When first work together in our mentor text, Tiger Rising, and then we try it on our own books that we are reading.
We are editing, revising, and rewriting our final copies of our own realistic fiction stories right now. Next week we will share our final stories and write an “on demand” piece of writing as a test to show what we have learned about writing this genre.
In math this week we practiced the “old school” short cut for multiplying 1 digit by 2, 3, and 4 digit numbers and then took our very long test that included multi-step word problems and different methods to solve the problem. Next week we start 2 digit multiplication. Please have your child practice their multiplication facts at home!
We are beginning a new science unit this week on Organisms in Their Environment. We began by looking at habitats and what animals need to survive. Next week we will look at different animals and what features help them survive or have an advantage over their same species in their habitat.
Thank you to everyone who signed up to bring things for the Halloween party. Don’t forget, if you would like to come up to the party, you must have a volunteer form on file already.
Important Dates
Tuesday, October 31 – Halloween parade (9:00 AM) and party (9:30 AM)
Thursday and Friday, November 2 and 3 – Swimming with Mr. Robinson
Wednesday – Friday, November 22-24 – Thanksgiving Break – no school