In reading, we continue to focus on applying reading strategies to read unknown words in text. Be sure to ask your child about the following strategies: lips the fish, flippy dolphin, skippy kangaroo, chunky monkey, stretchy snake, and fly bye. Hopefully they can explain these to you! We also continue to focus on various phonics patterns and sight words.
In writing, we are learning the 5 parts of a letter and we are learning how to write persuasive letters. We have focused on choosing 1 thing we want or 1 thing we want to do. After choosing 1 thing, students have been expected to write reasons for wanting this 1 thing. We are also focusing on using prepositions to explain time and place. While we are focusing on persuasive writing, we continue to work on conventions such as applying correct capitalization and punctuation. I highly encourage all students to work on writing at home, although this is not formally assigned each night. At this point in the school year, students are also highly encouraged to choose sentence writing for their one night of spelling homework. This will help to reinforce what we are practicing at school.
In math, we continue to practice problem solving each week and we are focusing a lot on place value (tens and ones). For example, for the number 43, students should be able to draw 4 ten sticks and 3 circles. Students should also be able to write this number in expanded form (40 + 3 = 43). In addition, we continue to focus on representing numbers in a variety of ways. In science, we have started learning about rocks. Be sure to ask your child who studies rocks?! Hopefully they will answer "a geologist!"
