Weekly Update: September 25

Coming Up

October 2: Walk for Fun Assembly and Homecoming

October 6: Geometry unit Assessment

Dear Parents, 

I enjoyed seeing all of you at BTSN; Please feel free to get in touch with me if you have concerns or questions about your children, the curriculum, or our plans for the year.

Curriculum

Reading

In our Reading Workshop we focused on reading “intensely,” noticing that good readers notice details, knowing that details matter and are included in a text for good reasons and purposes. I have almost finished the reading assessments for everyone in the classroom. We continue to work on organizing our reading notebooks so our notebooks are partners in our reading adventures. We continue to read The Tiger Rising by Kate DiCamillo and use the book to share how to stop and make meaningful notes as well as the meaning that can be gained from a text by making reading a social act.

Writing

Students have worked to plan and develop a realistic character and are starting to plot out a draft of a realistic fiction story. When planning the story plot, they are challenged to also think about their character's motivations, challenges and emotions during each scene in the plot draft. This next week students will start to work on developing drafts of these stories. 

Spelling/Word Study

We are reviewing syllables or word chunks as a spelling strategy. It is important for students to recognize syllables in words. When they are able to say one syllable at a time, spelling becomes much easier. We will be reviewing this important strategy with geography words connected with our global explorations.

Math

We are almost done with our unit on Geometry. Students have learned how to draw and identify lines and angles, and classify shapes by properties of their lines and angles. This upcoming week, students will be reviewing skills and vocabulary with the math project. The project is to be done with a team and in class. 

Our unit assessment will be in October. Students will be asked to

• Draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and perpendicular and parallel lines. Identify these in two-dimensional figures.
• Classify two-dimensional figures based on the presence or absence of parallel or perpendicular lines, or the presence or absence of angles of a specified size. 
• Recognize right triangles as a category, and identify right triangles.
• Identify line-symmetric figures and draw lines of symmetry. 

Inquiry: Global Connections 

Last week, students brainstormed countries they felt connected to either due to visits or family connections. We started to review the world map and reviewed the difference between a continent, country, state, and city. 

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