Themes, Concepts and Objectives for November 28th- December 2nd

Reading- This week we will begin Theme 8 by listening to an autobiograpy of Ben Franklin and reading our featured story Robot-Cat. We will  practice sythesizing, a comprehension strategy in which the students examine how their understanding of the story changes as it is being read for the first time.

Spelling-  We will practice /au/ and /aw/ this week.

Cougar Reading-  Our focus is on nouns and verbs this week. We will learn about possessive nouns and identify verbs this week.

Math- In math we will practice adding groups of tens and ones and learn how to regroup.

Writing-  This week we will write a Christmas story as well as learning the parts of a letter.

Science- We will conclude our unit on Plants and Animals this week as we study life cycles.

Themes, Concepts and Objectives for November 14-18

Reading- We will complete theme 6 this week as we re-read  the personal narative Route 66, the story of a family who travels from California to Illinois on Route 66, and  the stops they make along the way to view interesting landmarks. We will  build upon this theme by doing a mini research project on a state of our choice, record information in a booklet and create an informative post card describing our state and reporting various facts.

Spelling- This week we will analyze and practice words with the /oo/ and /ew/ spelling patterns. Look for your child's individualized list to come home on Monday.

Cougar Reading- Students will be transported with Jack and Annie in their Magic Tree House as we read Thanksgiving on Thursday by Mary Pope Osborne. We will utilize the comprehension skills of inferring, comparing and contrasting and questioning to deepen our understanding of the story as the novel is read aloud this week.

Math- Mental math strategies for subtraction will be introduced and practiced this week in Topic 7.

Writing-   Effective organization in writing is the objective this week.  We will address the concepts of inviting introductions, sequencing of events and a strong conclusion this week as we write a post card.

Cougar Math- We will build upon mental math subtraction strategies by practicing Greg Tang's Smart Subtract worksheets in class.

Concpets, Themes and Objectives for November 7-11

Reading- This week we will be learning about cross country travel in our shared reading book Route 66.  As we read we will use Fix-Up strategies to self-monitor for understanding. Good readers need to be trained on how to decode and decipher unknown words and meanings in a text.

Cougar Reading- We will explore the meaning of the word "pilgrim" this week as the novel Molly's Pilgrim is read aloud to the students this week. We will also talk about character traits and identify positive negative traits of characters in a text.

Math- We will  learn and practice stragtegies that help us to mentally add two-digit numbers.

Writing-    We will brainstorm ideas on how a turkey could avoid becoming Thanksgiving dinner, then take our favorite idea and turn it into a first person narative from the perspective of a turkey.

Science-  We will begin the final chapter in our Plant and Animal Science Unit this week as we learn about food webs and food chains in various environments around the world.