RFF day, No school for students Thursday March 8th
Digital Learning Day, no school for students Friday March 9th
Picture Day Wednesday March 14th
Family Spirit Night at NPES from 6 to 8
Field Trip is Wednesday. Make sure your kiddo either buys lunch from the cafeteria or packs in something that can be thrown away (paper bags, etc). We will give them their red New Prospect shirts that morning. If they do not have a shirt, please put them in a solid red shirt.
Box Tops & Labels for Education
Don’t forget to send in your Box Tops and Labels for Education each week! The PTA is doing a contest each month to see which class and student has the best participation! We want to win : )
Reading
We have been working on characters and their motivations. We dove deep into the reasons characters are the way they are. We are working on more than just saying "she is nice," we want them to dig deeper and tell us why and how they know she is nice. We will talk a lot about character traits and how characters change throughout a story.
We finished our second read aloud "Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel" and took our quiz today! We will be moving on to poetry and dramas before reviewing for milestones after that.
We will continue to work on writing about reading (milestones practice) throughout this unit as well. We will prepare them in every way we know possible. So don't be surprised if their homework seems harder or our pace moves a little faster.
One of the best ways to help your kiddo become a better reading is by having them read every night. Some students haven't been filling out their reading log which tells us they haven't been reading. Please make sure you have your kiddo read about 20-30 minutes a night. This is one of the best ways to help them become better readers. Even spending a few minutes on iReady in the evening is still better that nothing :)
Writing
We have been working on answering longer questions and how exactly to use text evidence when writing. We will be using our read alouds as examples. We want to use text evidence and our read alouds are the best way to do this. This is one of those units where it is hard to tell whether we are doing reading or writing because we are doing so much of both in these lessons. All of this is important skill that will be needed for milestones! This will lead right into reviewing for milestones. We will be working on all of that until spring break!
We are working on improving their grammar skills, as I am sure you have noticed with their homework. We are doing the best we can to fit everything in while they are here with us. They should be bringing their interactive notebook home as a study tool. This is where all their notes and examples are. You will see the skills continued to be repeated throughout the year in their homework packets. This is a great way to review. :)
Math
We worked on equivalent fractions, comparing fractions, and mixed numbers. We started to review for our unit test and will work on more review some next week. Check their interactive notebook for notes and helpful hints.
We will have our unit test March 13th and then move on to measurement and data before reviewing for milestones.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE continue practicing multiplication facts. We can not stress how important it is to know these facts. Everything builds off of those facts. We have noticed that many kids aren't studying their facts! We really need the kids to be studying those facts. The more successful they are with their fluency, the easier the rest of the year will be. We will be giving the kiddos plenty of tools and strategies to help make them successful but please know that we need your help as well.
Science
We are coming to the end of heat. We have been learning to read a thermometer and talk about insulators and conductors. We have been working on the vocabulary that goes with this unit. The kids have enjoyed this unit, especially all the hands on activities we have been doing in class. They will be showing up what they know, for a grade, in STEM over the next few weeks by having to build a solar oven. I'm sure you will hear all about it!