Cultivating Minds Without Losing My Own

Join me on my Adventures in Elementary Education

Weekly Objectives 11/12-11/16

November11

This week is going to be HUGE!  It is one of only 2 full weeks we have for learning in the month of November, so as you can imagine I’m packing it to the gills!  We will start off our week with World Run Day on Monday.  Remember to wear your sneakers and dress in layers so we can get our fitness on together and raise money for a great cause, the Big Brother/Big Sisters club of Cumberland County.  We will be partaking in our annual Thanksgiving Feast on Thursday.  Fourth graders are responsible for contributing boxes of instant mashed potatoes for our celebration.  I especially look forward to this activity and sharing Thanksgiving with “my kids.”  Finally remember that parent/teacher conferences start on Friday.  Students will have an early dismissal at 1:45 and conferences begin at 2:15.  I look forward to sharing your child’s progress with you during this time.

On our agenda this week:

Reading: This week we will be introducing our Literature Circle Roles.  Once all of the roles are learned, each night your child will read an assigned section and complete their assigned role.  The goal is that since everyone in each group is reading the same section, yet looking at it a slightly different way it will provide a lively and deep discussion about the material.  For the next 2 weeks, all students will be doing the same role sheet each night so that we can learn the responsibilities of each role together.  This week we are focusing on the following roles:

Summarizer- this role includes reading the section, writing a 1 paragraph summary of what happened answering the following questions- who, what, when, where, why, and how.  This person also lists any key pieces of information that are learned in the section.

Illustrator- this role includes reading the section and drawing a picture that best represents what happened in the section.  Illustrations are not judged on artistic ability but relevance to the content read.

Discussion Director- this role includes reading the section and formulating 5 questions about this section only to guide our discussion the next day in class.

Word Worm- this role includes reading the section and listing any new, powerful, or interesting words as well as defining them based on context clues.

Vocabulary: Students will define this weeks words and use them correctly in context.  This week’s words are words with multiple meanings.  Students are responsible for knowing all definitions for each word.

Grammar:We are beginning Unit 2 this week.  We will be focusing our efforts on identifying nouns, classifying them as proper or common, singular or plural, and identifying unique spelling changes for plural nouns.  For your reference see the information below to help your child at home:

Nouns- words that name a person, place, thing, or idea (ex. girl, teacher, house, school, dog, cat, cup, love, hope)

Proper nouns- name specific people, places, or things.  They begin with capital letters.  (ex. Mrs. Sinone, Millvile, White House, Statue of Liberty)

Common nouns- name common people, places, or things.  They are not capitalized unless they are the first word in the sentence.

Plural nouns- name more than one person, place, or thing (ex. bushes, cities, people)

Singular nouns- name one person, place, or thing (ex. student, fish, city)

Writing: This week we will be beginning working on persuasive/argumentative writing.  We will be focusing on choosing a side of an argument and writing to support our opinion with facts. 

Math:  Students will be working with multiplying with multiples (3×5, 3×50, 3×500), breaking apart factors to multiply(3×35= 3×30 +3×5), using mental math to multiply (3×19 is like 3×20 then subtracting 3), and using rounding to estimate multiplication ( 7×28 is estimated to 7×30)

Social Studies: Students will be working with geographical landforms and terms.

Science: Students will be able to determine between food chains and food webs.

Weekly Learning Objectives for October 22-26

October21

Happy Sunday!  After another not-quite-long-enough weekend it is back to the grindstone.  I hope you all were able to enjoy the weather and get outdoors with your families this weekend.  My family spent Saturday at soccer fields and visiting the new Amish Market in Bridgeton.  If you haven’t been out there, I highly recommend it.  AMAZING food, great prices and just some wonderful people to deal with.  All that out of doors activity has my allergies in an uproar so hopefully I make it through the week with a voice.  Right about now I sound like a cross between Marge Simpson and the mom on the Big Bang Theory :(. 

On to our objectives!

Reading: This week we will be working on summarizing.  A good summary answers the following questions:

Who was the story/article about?

What happened?

Where did it take place?

When did it take place?  (past, present, or future time)

Why did it turn out the way it dis?

How were the characters involved?

Grammar:  Students will be working to make sentences say more by adding descriptive words.

Vocabulary: Students will be working with more adjectives this week to make our writing more interesting and descriptive.

Writing: Students will be working to edit, revise, and publish their first portfolio piece about citizenship.

Math: Students will be using estimation and mental math to find sums and differences of 3 and 4 digit numbers. (addition and subtraction)

Social Studies:   Students will continue to learn about citizenship and the steps it takes to become an American citizen.

Science:   Students will wrap up their mock rock experiment.

Weekly Objectives for the Week of September 24-29

September23

Each week I will list out learning objectives we are working with.  I will also post links to websites or PowerPoint presentations that we use in class to help students continue their learning at home.  This is helpful to parents as well as it gives you a chance to “see” what we are doing and an opportunity to review the materials and help me make learning a full time experience for my students.

Vocabulary– Students will be able to define and use vocabulary words in sentences.

Grammar– Students will be able to explain that the simple predicate in a sentence is the verb (action word).  Students will be able to identify the simple predicate.  Students will be able to choose a simple predicate to complete a sentence.  Students will be able to identify the direct objective in a sentence as the noun that is receiving the action of the verb.  Students will be able to choose direct objects for sentences so that they make sense.

                     Simple Predicate Example:  Madison and Maren rode their bikes around the block.  (Rode is the verb in this sentence.  It answers the question, what did they do?)

                     Direct Object Example:  Madison and Maren rode their bikes around the block.  (Bikes is the direct object in this sentence.  It answers the question what did they ride?)

Math– Students will be able to recognize and repeat patterns involving numbers, shapes, addition and subtraction operations.  Students will be able to create tables to extend a pattern using multiplication and division.

                                                Example:  2,4,6,8,10, _______,_________,___________  ( pattern = counting by 2’s)

                                                                     4, 7, 10, 13, ______, __________, ___________  (pattern = add 3)

                                                                     Alex’s  age        2, 3, 4, 5, 6, ________, __________,   __________

                                                                    Andy’s age        6, 7, 8, 9, 10, _______, ___________, __________    ( relationship between Alex and Andy’s ages is Andy is 4 years older than Alex)

Social Studies – Students will learn about the election process in local government.

Science– Students will examine rocks to discover how they are created.

Writing– students will craft well written paragraphs with a clear purpose, details, and closing.

Reading:  Students will make text-to-self, text- to-text, and text-to -world connections.  (When reading students will take what they have read and talk about how something similar happened to them- text-to-self, how it reminds them of another book they have read, text-to-text, or how it relates to something going on in the world, in a movie, or a TV show they have seen, text-to-world)

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