Welcome to Mrs. Albaugh's class blog! I hope to keep this updated throughout the year, and my goal is to update it weekly, so that you can be aware of what's happening both within our curriculum, as well as extra activities we may be planning.
We will dive into our reading curriculum this week, beginning the first unit of what's called LEAD 21. The first unit is called Changes, and the overall theme question we will be exploring is "How do the changes around us make us who we are?" Each LEAD21 unit is 4 weeks long, with the overall theme being discussed throughout, but there is also a new focus question each week. For week 1, the focus questions is "How do things change?" The vocabulary words for this week are choose, responsibility, and confused. We will begin a nonfiction piece in our Theme Readers called Growing and Changing, and we will also begin working in our small reading groups and diving into our differentiated readers there. In spelling, we will begin working on all the ways to spell long a. Our first comprehension strategy for the year is determining important information versus supporting details. In grammar we will be reviewing the 4 types of sentences. Can your child tell you the difference between a declarative and an interrogative sentence? We will also begin studying prefixes this week, focusing on those that mean "not," and we will begin to learn all the steps of an Inquiry research project this week as well.
In writing this week, we will learn about the writing process, and use each of these steps in our first complete writing piece of the year. For your information, the steps to the writing process are Prewrite, Draft, Revise, Edit, and Publish. Can your child tell you what goes on during each of these steps (we may only make it through Draft this week)?
In math, we will continue working on the number patterns we began last week, and using these to explore addition properties. From there, we will learn how to round to the nearest 10 and the nearest 100, mainly through the use of a number line. If time allows, we will begin estimating sums. We also begin our program called Do the Math this week, where I will pull a small group of students to target addition and subtraction strategies, while the rest of the class practices through our online program called MobyMax. MobyMax is website that students can access and practice from home, so I encourage you to add a few minutes of MobyMax time to your child's afternoon homework routine when you can.
We will begin taking homework home this week. As discussed at Open House, your child will be bringing home their homework folder on Monday, and it will be filled with enough reading logs for your child to read each night M-Th and fill out a log for what they have read. Then, look for a math paper on Thursday. This, along with the completed reading logs and in the folder are due back on Friday, please. Check out the homework link under the Curriculum tab of this website to see the reading logs and the math paper (hopefully) will be uploaded on Thursday.
A theater company called Tears of Joy will be visiting our school this Wednesday, and we will have the opportunity to watch them perform a play called The Reluctant Dragon. Thank you all so much for making sure your children are coming to school every day and on time - out class attendance this year has been very nearly perfect! Remember, attendance matters!
Have a great week!
We will dive into our reading curriculum this week, beginning the first unit of what's called LEAD 21. The first unit is called Changes, and the overall theme question we will be exploring is "How do the changes around us make us who we are?" Each LEAD21 unit is 4 weeks long, with the overall theme being discussed throughout, but there is also a new focus question each week. For week 1, the focus questions is "How do things change?" The vocabulary words for this week are choose, responsibility, and confused. We will begin a nonfiction piece in our Theme Readers called Growing and Changing, and we will also begin working in our small reading groups and diving into our differentiated readers there. In spelling, we will begin working on all the ways to spell long a. Our first comprehension strategy for the year is determining important information versus supporting details. In grammar we will be reviewing the 4 types of sentences. Can your child tell you the difference between a declarative and an interrogative sentence? We will also begin studying prefixes this week, focusing on those that mean "not," and we will begin to learn all the steps of an Inquiry research project this week as well.
In writing this week, we will learn about the writing process, and use each of these steps in our first complete writing piece of the year. For your information, the steps to the writing process are Prewrite, Draft, Revise, Edit, and Publish. Can your child tell you what goes on during each of these steps (we may only make it through Draft this week)?
In math, we will continue working on the number patterns we began last week, and using these to explore addition properties. From there, we will learn how to round to the nearest 10 and the nearest 100, mainly through the use of a number line. If time allows, we will begin estimating sums. We also begin our program called Do the Math this week, where I will pull a small group of students to target addition and subtraction strategies, while the rest of the class practices through our online program called MobyMax. MobyMax is website that students can access and practice from home, so I encourage you to add a few minutes of MobyMax time to your child's afternoon homework routine when you can.
We will begin taking homework home this week. As discussed at Open House, your child will be bringing home their homework folder on Monday, and it will be filled with enough reading logs for your child to read each night M-Th and fill out a log for what they have read. Then, look for a math paper on Thursday. This, along with the completed reading logs and in the folder are due back on Friday, please. Check out the homework link under the Curriculum tab of this website to see the reading logs and the math paper (hopefully) will be uploaded on Thursday.
A theater company called Tears of Joy will be visiting our school this Wednesday, and we will have the opportunity to watch them perform a play called The Reluctant Dragon. Thank you all so much for making sure your children are coming to school every day and on time - out class attendance this year has been very nearly perfect! Remember, attendance matters!
Have a great week!