Happy October!

We have been learning so many things!

We have begun our Social Studies Project on Native Americans. It is a simple research project. Students have chosen their tribe to research and will choose a way to demonstrate their understanding of their research. Students have been given computer lab time to begin their research. We will continue our research in school this week. Students are encouraged to research their tribes at home as well. We will begin presentations on October 15. Our students are so excited. This will be a perfect preview for our field trip on October 23rd.

In Science we continue to learn about lenses, microscopes and microorganisms. Students should understand that in order to magnify, lenses must be curved and transparent. Students will also learn all of the parts of a microscope and how to properly handle the equipment. This week students will begin looking at various specimens. Students will learn how to properly focus on their samples and record their observations in their science notebooks.

Our kiddos are focusing on multiplication and division in unit 3 for math. Please practice facts nightly with fact triangles or with Xtra Math online. If your student understands all of their facts both multiplication and division please work on more challenging long division problems.

Students continue to work on learning spelling patterns, roots and affixes and new vocabulary. our kids are practicing vocabulary with analogies, word puzzles, games and individualized vocabulary study groups. They are adding new words to their vocabulary journals and using them in their writing. We are really working hard to raise our vocabulary knowledge.

We have spent many weeks making viable predictions in reading. Now we are slowly moving to summarizing fiction and informational text. Students are reminded to use the "Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then" model. It makes summarizing the important parts of the text easier.

We continue to work on developing realistic fiction stories. We have developed ideas from small moments of our lives or from stories we wished existed in the world. We are now developing complex characters that will live in our stories and bring them to life. Students are beginning to see the connections between story writing and the summarizing of our reading. It is wonderful to see students faces light up when they make the connections in their learning.

A few reminders...I still need a couple permission slips and money for the October 23rd field trip to Hoover Forest Preserve. Chaperones should arrive no later than 8:45am. Buses will leave promptly at 8:55am.This trip runs rain or shine. Please have students dress for the weather.

Our Wheatlands spirit wear has arrived! If there was a problem with your order please let me know. We also received our first book order this year. The kids were so excited. Thank you to all who ordered! I was able to order 3 new literature circle sets as well as other fun books for our classroom library. Awesome!

Please remember to keep Halloween costumes school appropriate. No weapons, fake blood or other things that might be too scary for our younger kiddos during the Halloween parade on Thursday, October 31st. Thank  you for helping with this.