September 29 - October 3 Weekly Update

The highlight of our week was going to FES to participate in the mini-KEYS event.  The music was pumping while the students ran laps.  When they were done, they were each given a snack.  Mr. Thull put a lot of work into making this event fun for the WES and FES students.

Our students reached our class goal of 100 bee points.  On Monday, we will vote on our reward!

Math

Our fourth and fifth grade students had their first assessment and will begin unit two next week.  We had all students take a pretest to determine new groups.  

The third grade students will continue to work on multiplication facts.  We have learned how to multiply and divide by 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, and 10.  Next week, we will work on 6, 7, 8.  Please continue to review facts at home.  There are many great apps and online programs you can use.  In class, we use aaamath.com.  You can search for many different math skills to work on at this site.

Fourth grade will begin a unit on multiplication.  They will learn to multiply one digit numbers by up to four digit numbers.  Eventually, we will get into two digit by two digit multiplication.  If students aren't secure in their basic facts, they need to be reviewing them at home.  All facts are expected to be secure by the end of third grade. 

Fifth grade will begin a unit on decimals.  They will be expected to read, write, and compare decimals to the thousandths place. In addition to this, they will round, add and subtract decimal numbers.

Reading

We are full swing in our workshop model.  Students are divided up into eight different groups based on their Fountas and Pinnell reading test.  During our small group reading time, students are reading a short book at their level.  As we read, we are focusing on story elements and character traits.  Next week, we will move on to summarizing.

When students aren't reading with a teacher, they are either in a book club or independent reading. They are assigned a book club at their reading level and continue to work on the same skills they are learning in the teacher group.  The students are loving the workshop model!

Writing

Last week, we introduced personal narratives to the students.  We have gone through pre-writing and drafting.  This week we started revising and editing.  Students are meeting individually with a teacher for assistance on this.  We have enjoyed reading their stories.  It helps us to get to know each of them a little better.  We will continue to work on this next week.  Students will have an opportunity to share their writing with their peers as well.

Science

We wrapped up our plant unit this week and had our first assessment.  Students will receive their test back on Monday.  We will move to social studies next week.