The Jungle Journal for the Week of 10/7/13

Reminders

Field trip forms and $ are due October 11^th.

The Book Fair is this week!  Our class visit is Tuesday.  Students are welcome to bring money to shop during our visit.  Family Night is Tuesday from 5-8 PM.

Readers’ Workshop

It is essential that stories ignite a vital sort of imagination, one that allows readers to live inside the world of the story, to identify with the characters, seeing and sensing situations from inside the characters’ minds.  This week, we are beginning to focus on personal response, envisionment, and empathy to strengthen the connection between readers and characters.  One way of accomplishing this goal, is focusing on the mental movie playing in our minds as we read.  Ask your child what they envision as they complete their nightly reading.

Writers’ Workshop

This week we will work to edit our memoirs.  We will be using CUPS to help us as we edit our pieces.  C stands for capitalization, U stands for understandable, P stands for punctuation, and S stands for spelling.  Students will work with a peer and in teacher led small groups to make necessary changes to their pieces before we begin publishing our memoirs.

Skills

Students should study and complete one of the homework options for list 5.  This week’s list features homophones, so students will need to focus on correct spelling as well as the correct meaning of each word.  Our quiz will be Friday. The quiz will also cover our skills topic of the week, past, present, and future tense verbs.  Our daily skills sheet (in their ROAR folder) will serve as their study guide.

Math

The students are discovering different ways to find the difference between 2-digit numbers and 3-digit numbers, through travel problems.  They will have a Travel Story quiz on Wednesday, October 9^th.  Students should review Unit 3, pages 54, 55, 58, 59, and 62 in their workbook to prepare.  Some of the workbook pages have been completed in class and can be a study tool, while some of the pages are additional review.  Ask your child to explain their work to you, focusing on writing the equation that matches the story, finding the difference between two numbers, and jumping to landmark numbers.     

Science

We are exploring what matter is and how it can be measured.  Students should recognize that the properties of matter (mass, volume, length, and temperature) can be measured and compared using tools.  Matter is anything that takes up space and has mass.  Properties of matter include size, shape, color, texture, and hardness.  They will have a quiz over Chapter 3, Lessons 1 and 2 on Friday, October 11^th.  The students can review Lesson 1 (pages 99-103) and Lesson 2 (pages 105-107) in their Science workbook to prepare. 

Social Studies

This week we are learning how to read a map key and compass rose.  There will not be a quiz until next Friday, October 18^th.