The Green Machine: Native American Regions, Weather, Telling Time and More...

Hello families! We hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! The kiddos were excited to celebrate with family. We really enjoyed hearing about their breaks.

In social studies/language arts, we continue to explore the Native American Regions - Great Plains, Southwest, Eastern Woodland and Northwest. Check out these great pics of our learning...

In math we are transitioning from addition and subtraction to telling time. However, we will continue to reinforce addition and subtraction skills and vocabulary. For telling time, you can reinforce this skill at home by using the vocabulary (minute hand, hour hand, half past, quarter after, o'clock, etc.) with your child. You can also use daily/nightly activities to track the time. It is important for students to understand that AM indicates morning (waking up, brushing teeth, eating breakfast) and PM indicates afternoon or evening (getting home from school, eating dinner, going to bed). While you are doing these activities take a moment to have your child read the clock (analog and digital). We will be concentrating on reading the clock to the hour, half hour, quarter hour and five minute (counting by fives). You can also ask your child story problems. For example, if you left the house at 7:00 AM and it took an hour to get to school, what time did you arrive?

In language arts our students are immersed in word study, guided reading and writing. Please continue to remind your child to use good reader strategies at home while reading unfamiliar text (look at the pictures, get your mouth ready, read on for meaning, look for smaller words or familiar word patterns within a word). Also, question before, during and after reading for deeper understanding. We are also focusing on story elements - setting, characters, problem, solution, and non-fiction text features such as labels, table of contents, bold print, captions, etc. While writing we are emphasizing the use of proper capitalization and punctuation and word spacing within a sentence - this includes editing and revising their own writing pieces.

In Science we are investigating weather and its affect on plants and animals. We created our own anemometer to measure wind speed using a wind scale. We also constructed and used a weather vane to determine the direction of the wind. We recorded our findings in our science journals.