The week of September 9th

Reminders:

- Homework is due on Monday, September 9th.

- Picture day is on Wednesday, September 11th. Students will have an opportunity to change clothes before morning recess.

- Reading should be a regular part of your child's daily routine. It should be a relaxing and fun activity aimed at teaching kids that they are readers at heart.

We have been very productive over the last couple of weeks. We've gotten off to a great start.

During our literacy sessions, we have been working on organizing our writing, writing fluently, and using our readers' response journals as tools for helping us understand texts. In addition, we have practiced choosing appropriate texts for learning literacy strategies, using powerful words in writing, and using understandings of genres to access and comprehend a range of texts. 

Learning experiences in math have revolved around reading, writing, and understanding numbers into the tens of thousands. Students have been working on explaining their thinking and solving multi-step problems. We took the unit one post-test (which will be sent home next week) and the unit two pre-test. As you practice at home with your child, please remember that it is more important for students to understand how and why we use numbers in certain ways than it is for students to find solutions to short, closed-ended problems. 

Our social studies unit is well under way. This week, we looked at a variety of primary sources to learn about the Great Chicago Fire and examined maps to learn about our place in the world. You can assist at home by allowing your child to help navigate during short trips or errands. We learned about the cardinal directions, so students should be able to begin reading maps of the area.