Good evening everybody,
A reminder of a couple important dates this week. On Wednesday, Feb 24th, it is wear a pink shirt day for anti-bullying. East Elementary is an anti-bullying school, and to support it we ask that your child wear a pink shirt. Friday's hot lunch is Subway for those of you that ordered.
Language Arts
Writing:
In writing this week we are going to focus on a couple of things. We are going to be looking at how to write interesting beginnings and endings to stories. An example of a beginning and an ending we typically see in writing are (Beginning: "
My name is Kate and this is a story about a..." This type of opening sentence gives us information we usually already know based on the title. We are talking about how to make the beginning capture the reader, using;
a thought, dialogue, an action, or a sound. For example,
"Hey, get over here!" yelled Mike. This would be an example of dialogue that may get the reader interested.)
(Endings;
"...and they lived happily ever after". This ending is typical and doesn't really wrap up the story in an exciting way. Story endings should sum up how the main character has grown and changed. Extended endings often include;
a memory, a feeling, a decision, a wish/hope, a defining action. We will get into more detail on this in a couple of lessons.
Phonics:
There will be a focus on consonant blends and digraphs this week, as well as some words ending in "y". A consonant blend is two consonants together that make 2 sounds, such as "st" and "tr". A consonant digraph is two consonants together that make one sound, such as "ch" "th" and "wh".
Math
With our addition and subtraction to 18 unit, we have been focusing on addition and subtraction families. We are now working on when an equation has a missing number and how we can solve it. For example 8+ ( ) = 12, or 14 - ( ) = 3.
We have also talked about order or numbers in addition and subtraction. In addition order does not matter. For 5 + 7 and 7 + 5 we get the same answer of 12. We talked about putting the larger addend first (the 7) for ease, especially when it comes to 2 digit addition. For subtraction order does matter because 5 - 7 and 7 - 5 are not the same. We talked about if you had 5 dollars and wanted to buy something for 7, could you do it? No because you don't have enough money. If you had 7 dollars and wanted to buy something for 5, could you? Yes because you would have enough and get some back. We will continue with this concept of order in addition and subtraction this week, then get into some mental math strategies such as making tens and doubles (doubles + 1, doubles -1).
Science
We are now well into our exploring liquids unit. We have done a couple fun experiments that emphasize some important knowledge regarding liquids. We have learned some terms such as viscosity (the thickness of a liquid), solution (when 2 or more parts look like 1, such as salt water or soy sauce), dissolve (when a solid disappears in a liquid upon stirring to make a solution), surface tension (water molecules on the surface binding together to make the surface strong), as well as freezing, melting, evaporating, condensing (changing states of matter). We began our experiment today where we are attempting to make crystals. We dissolved salt into water and put it into a jar with a pipe cleaner hanging in the water. As the water evaporates it will leave behind the salt crystals stuck to the pipe cleaner. They are really excited to see some crystals start forming.
It is going to be a learning filled week, and the last week of February no less. I hope everyone is enjoying the unseasonably warm temperatures brought to us by
El Nino. I know I am, and so is Gizmo, my in-laws dog that my wife and I are dog sitting for this week. Enjoy the warmth and have a great week.
Mr. Aasen
