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Spelling: Today we previewed a few of the words on our next spelling test. Students will receive the next spelling packet by the end of the week, or it can be downloaded by clicking here.

Cursive: Cursive worksheets pp. 18-20 were made available to students yesterday and are due Friday. 

Reading: Today we had a discussion about what we read in Esperanza Rising yesterday, using our “Connector” job sheet for ideas to discuss.

Writing: Students learned a new “trick” for listing specific details about a topic quickly: freewriting. Freewriting is where students brainstorm all they know about a topic, writing continuously for a short period of time (five minutes). Students then use the ideas to start their rough draft. Students also received their writing portfolio today (a manila folder) and their homework is to decorate their portfolio with pictures, magazine clippings, drawings, or anything else that is flat and can be laminated. The entire portoflio will be laminated next week, so students can work on it this week. A piece of writing will be due next Friday, October 13.

Math: We used straws and twist-ties again today to make rectangles, squares, and rhombuses. We discussed the rules for being a square, rectangle, rhomubus, trapezoid and parallelogram. Homework is to complete puzzle pages 32 and 39.   

Science: We learned that iron and steel are the special metals that magnets are attracted to. We also made temporary magnets out of paper clips.

Social Studies: We used the SQ3R strategy to learn about fishing in the Northeast.

Behavior Update:

• Yellows: two magnets
• Oranges: three magnets
• Reds: none

Ask your student what kind of choices they made.

Notes:

• Spirit Week is this week. Click here for a calendar of theme days. 
• We are looking for donations of cardboard tubes (toilet tissue, paper towel, wrapping paper) for class projects. The tubes can be sent in any time during the year; this project will be on-going. Thanks for any help you can give!
• There is still some space left on our Room 130 Pride board. Let’s fill that thing up! If your student hasn’t yet brought in three unique “objects” about themselves, then please send them so that they can be put on display for all to see. We are looking for things like photos, postcards, papers, medals, or little trickets that can be put in bags and hung on the board. The only limitation is size, and being able to be attached somehow to a bulletin board. These objects can remain with us the whole year, or rotated out whenever the student wants.

***Grades have been updated.*** 

Spelling: Today students created their Words to Learn list by correcting the words they missed on the recent spelling test. This Words to Learn list is their spelling list for the next test.

Cursive: Cursive worksheets pp. 18-20 were made available to students and are due Friday. 

Reading: Today we read Esperanza Rising and practiced making connections to the text.

Writing: Students continued to work on their map of buried stories. A piece of writing will be due next Friday, October 13.

Math: We used straws and twist-ties to make angles, triangles and quadrangles. Homework is to complete journal pp. 6-7.  

Science: We made minibooks for taking notes about magnets, and we wrote some important ideas that we have learned so far. We also did some tests to see how a floating magnet toy that we have in class works.

Social Studies: We answered the questions about autumn in the Northeast that we wrote on Thursday. We will do the same thing tomorrow about fishing.

Behavior Update:

• Yellows: two magnets
• Oranges: two magnets
• Reds: none

Ask your student what kind of choices they made.

Notes:

• Spirit Week is this week. Click here for a calendar of theme days. 
• We are looking for donations of cardboard tubes (toilet tissue, paper towel, wrapping paper) for class projects. The tubes can be sent in any time during the year; this project will be on-going. Thanks for any help you can give!
• There is still some space left on our Room 130 Pride board. Let’s fill that thing up! If your student hasn’t yet brought in three unique “objects” about themselves, then please send them so that they can be put on display for all to see. We are looking for things like photos, postcards, papers, medals, or little trickets that can be put in bags and hung on the board. The only limitation is size, and being able to be attached somehow to a bulletin board. These objects can remain with us the whole year, or rotated out whenever the student wants.

Can you find this week’s information challenge?

In our book, A Long Way from Chicago, Joey talked about Al Capone.

Who is Al Capone? What did he do? Why was everyone so scared of him. And what was he finally arrested for?

Look it up and bring in your evidence on Friday!