Well hello again!  We are back from break, back from conferences, back from a much needed technology shut down on my part!  Thank you all for bearing with me as I took a break from the blog in order to interact face to face with the parents who attended conferences and my own family over Thanksgiving.  I must say I was tempted at times to post, but in the end I’m glad I held off. 

We are back though.  It is a full, UNINTERUPTED week of instruction on our plates!  Woo hoo!  Please take a peek at the new Literature Circle page to help you and your child navigate through our new reading homework assignments.  Each night you child will have a different literature circle role they must complete along with reading the assigned chapter in their book.  It is VERY IMPORTANT that they complete both the reading and the role sheet.  When one person comes to a literature circle unprepared, we all lose out.  My goal is 100% participation everyday so we can learn to discuss literature in depth.

Here are our learning goals for this week:

Reading– We will be starting new novels and literature circles this week.  Every day we will hold a “book club” discussion about the previous night’s reading assignment.

Grammar– we are working with pronouns this week, both common pronouns and asking pronouns.

Common pronouns– I, me, he, she, it, they, them, we, ours, hers, his, its, theirs

Asking pronouns– who, what, which

Vocabulary– This week we will be working with 20 words instead of our normal 15, but they are synonyms.  So really it is like learning 2 ways to say the same thing.

Writing– we are distinguishing between fact and opinion this week. 

Math– This week we are extending our knowledge of multiplication and multiplying 2, 3, and 4 digit numbers by 1 digit.  Parents feel free to teach your child “the old way” of how to do this. 

Social Studies– we will be using political, physical, road, and product maps to learn information.

Science- We are learning about invertebrates (animals with out a back bone) and vertebrates (animals with a back bone)