I can’t believe it’s December already!  This week is one that is fraught with disruptions.  Hopefully we will be able to navigate them and still complete the objectives I have set for the week.  I think we can do it!

Every day we will be having chorus practice to prepare for our winter concert on Tuesday, December 11th.  In addition to chorus practice we will FINALLY be visiting the fire house on Tuesday. 

Here is our learning objectives for this week and how you can help out at home:

Reading: Students will be working to determine cause and effect relationships.  You can help out at home by having them explain the cause or the effect of their favorite TV characters actions.  For  example, “What did _____________ do to end up in trouble at school or with his/her parents?”

Grammar:  We are working with verbs this week.  Our focus is on action and linking verbs.  See below for more information on each.

Action Verbs: tell what the subject of the sentence does, identifies and action (runs, walks, shares, gives, takes)

Linking Verbs: Links the subject of the sentence with words that tell what the subject is or is like (am, is, are, was, were, became, seem) 

Vocabulary:   Our words this week are antonyms or opposites.  Each of the 20 words has an opposite among the list.  For example fact and opinion, ascend and descend are 2 pairs of antonyms.

Writing:   Students will begin working on a persuasive piece about why you should take them on a dream vacation to Madagascar.  I am hoping to tie in some of our work with animals in Science with this piece.

Math: Students will be wrapping up topic 6 at the beginning of the week.  There will be a test on Wednesday.  Thursday and Friday we will begin working with 2 by 2 digit multiplication (12 x 23).

Social Studies: We are continuing our work on map skills by identifying the regions in the United States.

Science:  We will be working with identifying the parts of a life cycle this week.