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***Mrs. Wheeler was a guest teacher in our room today. I was out for a Technology Coaching Day assisting other McGrath teachers.*** 

Spelling: Today students brainstormed words to match /s/ spelling patterns: s, ss, sc, ce, ci, cy

Cursive: Cursive pages 44-46 are available and due Monday.

Reading: Today was a reading day.

Writing: Students had prewriting conferences and continued to prewrite for a personal narrative due December 19.

Math: Students played several games to review their multiplication facts. Homework is to finish Math Boxes 3.1 if not done in class.

Science: None today.

Social Studies: None today. Students assisted me in the computer lab with a computer project to help McGrath students.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 0
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 0

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at SnapGrades to see if your student moved their magnet.

Notes:

• Capitol Field Trip on Tuesday, December 4. Click here for more information or a permission slip. Let me know if you would like to chaperone.
• Want an electronic dictionary? Orders are due Friday, November 30 and the cost is $20.
• View grades, assignments and even the report card at SnapGrades.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• This week’s juice volunteers: thanks to responsible and generous families, we have a juice backlog, so no juice volunteers needed for a few weeks!

Spelling: Today was a preview of upcoming spelling words.

Cursive: Cursive pages 44-46 are available and due Friday.

Reading: Today was a discussion day. We also read some of our shared book, Esperanza Rising.
Writing: Students started their next piece of writing today; some started lists, webs or charts as a prewriting strategy. The next piece of writing is due December 19.

Math: None today.

Science: None due to library.

Social Studies: We watched some video clips about the branches of government.

El Nacimiento: This December, we will be looking at how Esperanza, the Mexican girl from our shared reading story, Esperanza Rising, would have celebrated holidays in December. Mexico has many more days of significance during December, January and even into the beginning of February, than we have in the US. Today, we learned about the primary holiday decoration in Mexico: the Nacimiento (the birth or the nativity).

This scene is usually placed in a prominent location, and can be as large as an entire room. The Nacimiento contains various people, animals, cacti, mountains, lights, cellophane waterfalls, mirror ponds, houses, and Spanish moss. There could be as many as 200 different figures in the display. Ours is in our showcase; Esperanza’s was in her hallway. Visit MexConnect for other Christmas traditions in Mexico.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 0
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 3

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at SnapGrades to see if your student moved their magnet.

Notes:

• Capitol Field Trip on Tuesday, December 4. Click here for more information or a permission slip. Let me know if you would like to chaperone.
• Want an electronic dictionary? Orders are due Friday, November 30 and the cost is $20.
• View grades, assignments and even the report card at SnapGrades.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• This week’s juice volunteers: thanks to responsible and generous families, we have a juice backlog, so no juice volunteers needed for a few weeks!

Spelling: Today was a spelling test and skill test over digraphs: sh, th, wh, ch and ph.

Cursive: Cursive pages 44-46 are available and due Friday.

Reading: Today was a reading day. Some groups worked on fix up strategies, such as rereading.

Writing: A piece of writing was due into portfolios today. The next piece of writing is due December 19.

Math: Today students prepared their multiplication and division fact triangles and started sorting them into “know” and “don’t know” piles. Homework is to finish sorting the triangles into “know” and “don’t know” piles and to practice the “don’t know” pile two times.

Science: We talked about the design of light bulbs, dissected a light bulb, and learned that incandescent lights need the surrounding glass globe to prevent oxygen from fueling a flame hot enough to burn through the filament.
Social Studies: We played Government Jeopardy! to review the branches of government. We also reviewed the branches of government at the local level.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 0
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 12

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at SnapGrades to see if your student moved their magnet.

Notes:

• Capitol Field Trip on Tuesday, December 4. Click here for more information or a permission slip. Let me know if you would like to chaperone.
• Want an electronic dictionary? Orders are due Friday, November 30 and the cost is $20.
• View grades, assignments and even the report card at SnapGrades.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• This week’s juice volunteers: thanks to responsible and generous families, we have a juice backlog, so no juice volunteers needed for a few weeks!

Spelling: We reviewed the digraphs, sh, th, wh, ch and ph. This will be the skill tested tomorrow on the spelling test.

Cursive: Cursive pages 44-46 are available and due Friday.

Reading: Today was a discussion day shortened by Recess of Choice training. Some groups worked on fix up strategies, such as rereading.

Writing: We talked about making characters “come to life” by writing realistic dialogue and describing how the characters act. Today was also a publishing day. The next piece of writing is due tomorrow, November 28.

Math: Today was the math test over these concepts:

• addition
• subtraction
• data landmarks (maximum, minimum, median, mode, range)
• bar graphs
• reading and writing large numbers (up to millions)
• identifying the value of digits in a number (the 9 in 598 is worth 90)

Science: We learned about how incandescent and fluorescent light bulbs work. We had a light bulb dissection also planned, but the class had an issue with time mismanagement.
Social Studies: The time mismanagement problems carried over to social studies and made it hard for us to learn about the local level of government. As a result of our inefficiency, the class has two homework assignments:

1. Complete a chart, drawn in class, that shows who works in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the county, city and state government levels (we ran out of learning time in class due to poor choices, so the learning has to happen at home).
2. Write Jeopardy! questions (worksheet here) about the state government.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 0
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 0

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at SnapGrades to see if your student moved their magnet.

Notes:

• Capitol Field Trip on Tuesday, December 4. Click here for more information or a permission slip. Let me know if you would like to chaperone.
• Want an electronic dictionary? Orders are due Friday, November 29 and the cost is $20.
• View grades, assignments and even the report card at SnapGrades.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• This week’s juice volunteers: thanks to responsible and generous families, we have a juice backlog, so no juice volunteers needed for a few weeks!

Spelling: We reviewed usage of capital letters:

• For specific names
• For specific places
• For specific titles
• For days of the week, months, holidays, but not seasons

We’ll have a spelling test on Wednesday.

Cursive: Cursive pages 44-46 are available and due Friday.

Reading: Today was a reading day. Some groups worked on chunking large words to help read them. Chunking involves looking for common beginnings and endings of words, reading the words in pieces, or looking for words inside of words.

Writing: None today due to art. The next piece of writing is due November 28.Math: We reviewed for tomorrow’s math test, which will be over these concepts:

• addition
• subtraction
• data landmarks (maximum, minimum, median, mode, range)
• bar graphs
• reading and writing large numbers (up to millions)
• identifying the value of digits in a number (the 9 in 598 is worth 90)

Click here for a practice test and answer key you can review and print.
Science: We reviewed last week’s Investigation Review and took notes about electricity in our minibooks.

Social Studies: Our class Senate wrote a bill that bans cutting in line, punishable by a loss of spot in line and two team points. The Senate passed the bill unanimously, and the House passed the bill by a 3-1 margin. Governor Kayla signed the bill, and police officers are already enforcing the new law.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 0
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 3

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at SnapGrades to see if your student moved their magnet.

Notes:

• Capitol Field Trip on Tuesday, December 4. Click here for more information or a permission slip. Let me know if you would like to chaperone.
• The Candle fundraiser orders are due tomorrow! This is our biggest fundraiser for our spring Mackinac trip.
• Want an electronic dictionary? Orders are due Friday, November 29 and the cost is $20.
• View grades, assignments and even the report card at SnapGrades.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• This week’s juice volunteers: thanks to responsible and generous families, we have a juice backlog, so no juice volunteers needed for a few weeks!