Mrs. Ross's Classroom Blog: Happy Friday!

Happy Friday!

What a wonderful last full week of April we had! :) We had great weather for Outdoor Classroom Week! The students worked so incredibly hard on their writing, we finished up our Earth changes unit by discovering what humans can do to effect our ecosystem, we started taking about food chains, and we finished up our Unit 8 in math. Whew! We had a busy week!!

As the school year comes to close, there are a lot of special activities make sure to check out the Upcoming Special Dates to make sure that they are on your calendar!

Upcoming Special Dates

· May 8 – PTA Meeting

· May 11 - Variety Show

· May 15 - Runge Field Trip

· May 16 - Field Day

· May 18 - Lunch Bunch (11:00-11:30) & Writing Celebration (11:30-12:00)

· May 18 - Wear Your Favorite Color Day

· May 22 - Last Day of School (early dismissal)

Lunch Bunch & Writing Celebration

The kiddos are working so incredibly hard on their Which is Better books - make sure to read the "Writing" section below to see what we are doing. As a celebration of all their hard work we will be having a Lunch Bunch & Writing Celebration on May 18. Lunch Bunch will start at 11:00 and we will be eating at the pavilion, and then at 11:30 we will come back to the classroom for our Writing Celebration. For the Lunch Bunch, you can either bring a special lunch from home or a restaurant to enjoy with your child or you buy lunch from the cafeteria. At 11:30, we will come back to the classroom so that you can see all the awesome Which is Better projects!

Look What's Been Happening in Moss World!

Math

What we did this week: We completed our Unit 8 in math. There are only nine units...we are SO close to being complete with our Everyday Math lessons! The focus of Unit 8 was geometry and arrays and we took our post test on Wednesday. The kiddos did so great on this test! This assessment came home on Thursday. If you did not review it with your child, sign it, and send the test back to school with your child today - please do so on Monday. We ask you to sign & return just so that we know that you are seeing how your child did.
What we will do next week: We started Unit 9 today with partitioning a square, rectangle, and circle into halves (2 equal parts), thirds (3 equal parts), and fourths (4 equal parts), Next week, we will continue to talk about equal groups, and then move on to measuring to the nearest half inch and expanded form.

Writing

What we did this week: We have been chugging along on publishing our Which is Better writing. This is one of our bigger writing activities, and the students will have an opportunity to make an additional project to go along with their writing. We talked about different project ideas today and a paper is coming home in your child's Friday Folder (or you can click here to view the paper). We will have some arts supplies at school, but your child's project idea might require an additional item from home. We have told students that they do NOT have to bring in materials and that there are plenty of fun and creative projects that they can do with what we are providing. Over the weekend, please have a conversation with your child about what project s/he is wanting to do. If materials from home are needed, we are asking for all materials to be at school no later than Tuesday, May 1.
What we will do next week: Any students that have not completed their publishing of the Which is Better book will finish publishing,and students who have a completed book will start their project.

Reading

What we did this week: We started talking about cause and effect in literature. We read If You Give a Mouse a Brownie and saw how one action led to another action, that led to another action, and so on. We also read Chrysanthemum and realized that one person's actions can effect another person in either a positive way or a not so positive way.
What we will do next week: We will finish up talking about cause and effect and then start talking about poetry.

Word Study

What we did this week: We are almost finished with learning about different word study patterns. This week we talked about ore, and oar words.
What we will do next week: We will have our last r-influenced words with ure, ur_e, and ur words. Next weeks words are: sure, lure, pure, cure, curve, curse, purse, nurse, blurt, turkey. Next week will be our last week for spelling words. For the last few weeks of school we will be reviewing grammar rules.

Science

What we did this week: We finished up our Earth changes unit by talking about humans can impact of effect the ecosystem. We talked about pollution, construction, logging, and hunting. The kiddos made a flip book that hanging up in the classroom - if you are school you should check out what they have learned! We also started talking about food chains. All food chains start with the sun because the sun gives energy to the producers (plants). Then a primary consumer eats the producer. There can also be a secondary, tertiary, and other consumers in a food chain. We also discussed that a food chain has a decomposer, and that some food chains even have a scavenger. Make sure to check out the pictures of the kiddos making food chains outside today down in the picture section! :)
What we will do next week: We continue to talk about food chains, and living organisms.

Nutrition Class

The kiddos love when Mrs. Zapata comes in and teaches Nutrition! They are learning SO much!! :) This week they had an opportunity to try oranges, guavas and pineapples. Check out the picture section to see the kiddos enjoying their tasting party!

Outdoor Classroom Week

Outdoor Classroom Week was a success! A huge thank you to Emily Reynolds who heads this week up every year! On Tuesday, we went on a tour of the Outdoor Classroom and people from the Missouri Department of Conservation and Urban Gardens teach us a little about the prairie, pond, butterfly garden, woods, and garden. Then on Thursday, we had our Outdoor Classroom service project of mulching the pathways of the garden. There are lots of pictures below from both activities - make sure you check them out!