Concepts and Themes for May 2-6, 2011

Reading- We will read the selections Round and Round The Money Goes  and Seeds of Fortunes. We will reinforce the comphension skill of cause and effect and identify story elements, define the term "folktale" and identify dialogue in text.

Spelling-  This week will spell and define words with the prefix -un.

Writing- We will examine given stories and identify story elements and the rising and falling action of plot. Then we will use the writing process to write our own story with a strong beginning, middle and end.

Cougar Time- We will reinforce our reading and writing skills for this week by using graphic organizers to identify story elements and plot. We will also identifly dialoge in a given text and create dialogue for our own characters.

Math- Mulitplying by zero, Identifying multiples of 2,3,4,and 5, and measuring weight in metric untis

Social Studies- Economics is our new unit! We will define and give examples of  the following words: needs, wants, goods, services , producers and consumers.

Concepts and Themes for the Week of April 25-29

Reading- This week in reading we will complete our theme Every Drop Counts. We will highlight the text features of captions and indexes, as well as practicing the comprehension strategy of pausing and reflecting on information we've read.

Writing- In writing we will review simple vs. compound sentences and use joining words such as "and", "but", "or" and "so".

Cougar Time- We will define the words homophones and homonyms this week and brainstorm examples of each. Also, we will create a class joke book full of homophone and homonym word play.

Math- Making change for $1.00, Dividing by 2, and Finding Area of a Rectangle

Science- Students will review the Scientific Method and apply these steps as we conduct various experiments this week.

Concepts and Themes For April 18- April 22

Reading- Our new theme Every Drop Counts partners nicely with the celebration of Earth Day this week. We will read the selections Gugu's House and Splash and practice the comprehension strategy of pausing and reflecting on what we've read as a means for enhancing understanding.

Spelling- This week we will learn the long and short vowel rules for adding -ing to the end of verbs. If the word has a short vowel such as "run" you double the next consonant and spell "running". In long vowel words such as "drive" you drop the "e" and add "ing" to spell "driving".

Writing- We will practice the skill of editing this week as we write various Earth Day themed assignments.

CougarTime- We will learn about character traits this week as we read excerpts from Junie B. Jones novels and some fractured fairy tales. We will learn the difference between flat character and round characters and use graphic organizers to analyze, compare and contrast various characters.

Math- Multiplying by four, Surveying for Data and creating a graph

Science- This week we will begin our unit on the Scientific Method. We will define words,  learn procedures and conduct an experiment!

Themes and Concepts for the Week of April 11-15

Reading- This week we will continue to work on the skill of summarizing text as we reread the selection Grandma's Ring. We will also review the term "character" and discuss the character traits of Maria, the main character of our story.

Writing- This week we will apply our knowledge of "cause" and "effect" as we write about severe weather and weather safety procedures. We will also depict our knowledge of the water cycle by creating a humorous diary of a water droplet.

Cougar Time- We will expand our vocabularies this week as we learn about synonyms and antonyms.

Math-  Arrays, Time to the Quater Hour, & Translation, Reflection and Rotation

Science- We will define the words "evaporation", "condensation" and "precipatation", observe what happens as salt water evaporates and even sing a song while learning about the water cycle this week.

Concepts and Themes for April 4-8

Reading- We will begin the theme The Wonderful Changes of Water by reading aloud the selections The Snowflake: A Water Cycle Story and Grandma's Ring. Our comprehension focus will spotlight the skill of summarizing a story by picking out the main idea and supporting details. In reading groups we will reinforce these skills by  writing informative reports and creating diaramas.

Spelling- This week we will teach the rule "change the "y" to "i" and add -er or -est".

Writing- This week we will review the word "publishing" as we write  humorous stories about a class trip that gets ruined by a hurricane. We will also learn the word "presentation" as we ready our stories to be shared by adding text features such as: illustrations, title, and headings.

Cougar Time- Identifying "cause" and "effect" in given text examples is our skill for this week.

Math- Perpendicular Lines and Subtracting three-digit numbers

Science- We will introduce types of clouds, identify clouds in the sky and make a cotton ball rain in class this week!