Freedom Week was Celebrated this week!

Hi,

This week is Freedom Week and September 17 is Constitution Day so we celebrated by singing the Preamble (Schoolhouse Rock) and reciting part of the Declaration of Independence. We also compared the Pledge of Allegiance to the Pledge to the Texas Flag and made a venn diagram to show similarities and differences. Brainpop is a fun way to learn new things and we used it to learn about the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

Read about our week:

Reading-We talked about recommending books that we love to others and trying out books that friends recommend. We also worked on leaving tracks of our thinking during a fiction book called Dear Al and discussed ways that the characters changed and possible themes of the story. We worked in small groups on summarizing, asking questions, and character descriptions. We brainstormed words with a -ly suffix and a -ish suffix and tried using them in sentences. We have been reading a lot at school. Be sure your child is reading a lot at home and talk to him/her about what he/she read.

Writing-We gathered more small moment entries and then chose one to take through revisions and editing and then possibly to publishing. We drafted leads and discovered that putting a few leads together seems to work best. (action, setting, dialogue leads) Ask your child about his or her draft and ask him/her to retell the story to you like a storyteller. You don't want a summary of the story, but you want to feel like you are part of the story because of the descriptions and details used.

Math-Arrays and multiplication strategies with problem solving has been our focus. We will continue working with multiplication and division. We will work on computational fluency as well as multi-step problems. Thanks for practicing facts at home and working on strategies.

Social Studies-We did Freedom Week activities and we took a virtual bus trip through Texas. We stopped in each region and looked at photos and took notes. We will write about our favorite regions and then will be working on a group project. Each group will create a poster-sized map of Texas with important things highlighter. Be sure and come and see them.

Science-We will be learning about classifying matter next week.

Dates to Remember:
Education Go Get It Week
Monday- Wear College Shirt
Tuesday-Hats off to College! Wear a hat.
Wednesday-Slip into College! Wear slippers
Thursday-Dress for Success! Wear an outfit that represents your future profession
Friday-I Promise to Graduate! Wear FCE, green, or purple pockets.

Thursday, September 27-PEN PAL VISIT!!!!!! You are welcome to join us! Library 9:30-10:45ish.
Thursday, September 27-Service Club Meeting from 2:45-3:45 for 4th and 5th graders. Meet in my room and email or call with concerns.

Keep reading and let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew