December 16, 2016

Dear Families,

Brrr!  This was definitely our chilliest week this year.  We are glad to see students coming prepared for the cold. Students will go out to recess everyday unless the temperature drops below zero.  

Reading  This week we focused on summarizing.  Students often like to retell the whole story so we’ve worked on just telling the important parts.  We use a graphic organizer called, “Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then.”  Students use this to explain what the character wanted, what the problem was, and how it was resolved.  

Writing

The students are working on writing complete paragraphs with a topic sentence, supporting details and a conclusion.  These skills are the building blocks for our writing to inform unit.  In this unit, students will be writing informational pieces about a variety science and social science units.  

Math

In math, we are continuing to work with rounding to the nearest ten and hundred.  We’re also learning efficient strategies for adding larger numbers.  Number Corner this month is all about fractions, so students have also been working to identify different fractions as well as equivalent fractions with different denominators.  

Social Science  We’ve begun our discussion of why European explorers explored North America.   Students will gather information about who the explorers were, why they were exploring, and noting what they found.  This week we introduced the Vikings.

On January 19th, PIE will be hosting a learning event called “Proficiency Based Learning - Part 2.”  More details should be listed in an upcoming edition of the Viking, which can be found online at http://hcsvt.org/Page/4487.

Have a great weekend, and stay warm!

December 9, 2016

December 9, 2016

Dear Families,

We had an enjoyable week, albeit chilly!  Here are some of the things we worked on this week:

Reading

We have continued to work on comprehension strategies during reading.  This week, we practiced visualizing, which is creating a picture in your mind based on the author’s words.  We drew pictures and found text to support our thinking.

Writing

Students have been enjoying having time to work on a writing piece of their choice.  While students were free writing teachers had the opportunity to conference with each student on goals for our next unit:  Writing to Inform.  

Math

We kicked off our new unit, which began with rounding.  Students have begun to practice rounding numbers to the nearest ten.  As the unit progresses, students will also learn about rounding to the nearest hundred.  We’ll also begin developing strategies for adding multi-digit numbers in an efficient way.

Also, students had the opportunity to problem solve while learning to code with the Hour of Code.  Students needed to demonstrate spatial recognizing while maneuvering an object with a series of commands.  They can practice at home via the HCS website.

Social Science

This week, we focused on Native Americans who lived in the Plains region.  We discussed the importance of the buffalo in all areas of their lives.  This week, we will be comparing and contrasting the Eastern Woodlands region with the Plains region.

Enjoy the weekend and keep warm!

December 2, 2016

Dear Families,
We hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  We look forward to getting back into a routine for a few weeks before the winter break.  Take a peek at what we have been doing.

Math
In math we have finished Unit 2.  Students learned a variety of strategies and models to help them build a conceptual understanding of multiplication.  We will now move into Unit 3 and focus on adding and subtraction strategies for computing with larger numbers.  Use the link below for more information on Unit 3:
http://www.mathlearningcenter.org/sites/default/files/documents/family/PAR-BR3-U3.pdf


Reading
Students have been participating in book groups/clubs.  Each group is reading a book at their instructional level and meeting weekly to discuss the story.  While reading students are using a variety of strategies to help them understand the text.  Some of the comprehension strategies are asking questions,  making connections, inferring, visualizing, determining importance, and monitoring for meaning.

Writing
Students have published their narratives and will be sharing them with their peers, buddies, and of course their families.  We hope you enjoy reading these stories.  Next we'll move onto informational writing.  We'll begin with paragraph writing and then move into writing reports.

Word Study
Word study will resume this week.  Students should have brought a new word list home with them in their folder on Friday.

Social Science
We will be wrapping up our study of Native Americans and how the environment of the region impacted the way of life of the tribes living in that region.  We will begin our mini unit on European Explorers.  Our lessons will focus on helping students discover why Europeans explored North America.