Weekly Update 2/28/14

I can't believe it's the last day of February!  Where did the whole month go?  I hope everyone had a great vacation!  Mine was nice…relaxful but by the time it's ending I'm ready to get back to business!
**Important things to remember!
*We will be attending the book fair on Monday.  If you would like your child to purchase books during this time, please send in money in a ziploc bag so they can put any change in there.
*Conference schedule went up early this week and many of you have signed up.  If you haven't, or haven't received the sign up, check your spam.  If you need the link, let me know and I can tell you the times that are still available.  This is for you and your child to attend.  Your children have lots to share with you and it's a great time to have a good conversation about how the year has been going.  
*Field trip information went one yesterday.  Please read it carefully and keep the first copy home with you to keep the important information.  The total for both trips is $46.  Please sign the 2 forms, check off if you'd like your name to be in the hat for chaperones, check with Francie to be sure you have a current CORI, and send the money in an envelop or ziploc with their name on it.  I don't have change and can not accept a check, so please send in exact change.  More info will come later about specifics.  Thanks!
*March 13th is an early release day for conferences.
*March 18th, Tuesday, is a FULL DAY of school with a WEDNESDAY schedule.
*March 19th, Wednesday, is an EARLY RELEASE day with a TUESDAY schedule.  This is due to the MCAS 4th grade long composition test.

What's happening in room 235?
In literacy, we've been finishing up pourquois by pulling all the ideas together into a story map and we began to write our own group pourquois.  It's been very interesting to see their ideas about how things come to the world (such as How spiders got 8 legs? Why dinosaurs breath fire?).  We'll be starting to read trickster tales next week.  The students are very excited about it!  In Fundations, we finished out our unit on -r controlled syllable words.  We have started working with ae and ai double vowel syllables.  We'll continue this next week. In writing workshop, we've been working with our opinion letters and have begun publishing their letters about the books they've been reading.  I am excited to share them with you at conferences!
In math, we finished up unit 6, began working on a subtraction assessment  which will help guide us with plus time groups, and started working with compliments of 10 to help us learn how to work with numbers much easier.  We also will work with using addition and subtraction strategies for getting from starting to target numbers.
In social studies, we finished out our Mexico unit by writing an alphabet book on Mexico.  Once it's all put together, I'll post it for all to see!
In science, we've been discussing  what rolls and slides.  This will be the beginning of our ramps lessons.  We also now have a lunar moth and we will be observing the changes over the next few weeks.  Hopefully it will make it this year!  It doesn't eat or drink so we just watch but last year it didn't make it! :(
***Ask your child what rolls and what slides.  What stops things from rolling or sliding and what helps get them started?  Ask your child what their letter was for the Mexico book and which picture they drew!  What is the difference between a pourquoi and a fable?  What makes the story a pourquoi?
Any questions, please let me know!
Have a great weekend!