Go Panthers!

Happy Panther Pride Day!

Reading

This week we worked hard to determine the main idea of passages we read. The students read nonfiction passages about storms and presidents. We learned about the presidential election, Mount Rushmore, and some of the presidents’ nicknames. The students determined that the “main idea” of what they read has to be a big enough topic that all of the details will support it. The students also studied verbs, or action words. We discussed how some words, like cut, act, and bump, can be both a noun and a verb. We have to use the clues in the sentences we read to figure out if words are nouns or verbs. For example:

My mom drove over the bump in the road. (Bump is a noun.)

The boys will bump into one another. (Bump is a verb.)

Below, the students are discussing the main idea of nonfiction magazine articles.

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Next week, the students will study the folktale, How the Chipmunk got His stripes. We will use this story to help us study characters and work on summarizing what we read. We will work on adding “ed” and “ing” endings to words. The students will study synonyms (words that mean the same) and antonyms (words that mean the opposite.) The students will have the opportunity to use a thesaurus to find vivid verbs and awesome adjectives to spice up their writing! Our vocabulary words for next week are: Curled, direction, healed, height, toward, tunnel, tease, and brag.

Spelling

This week the students studied words containing the “bl” and “fr” blends. Next week, we will study words that end in a “k” or “ck”, like book and shock.

Writing

This week we concluded our writing unit on organization and the students wrote a piece to show what they had learned throughout this unit. The students were required to begin their writing with an engaging lead, create a middle full of the important details, and wrap up their work with feelings. Our next writing unit is on writing with “voice.” This unit helps the students practice writing in an interesting way that makes their reader say, “I can’t put this story down!”

Math

As we continued our geometry unit the students have been learning about 3D shapes and symmetry. The students have worked hard to classify different 3D shapes into groups by their attributes, like shapes with curved surfaces and shapes with flat faces. We have learned about different types of pyramids as well. Unit 6 will cover estimation, addition and subtraction strategies, and multiplication!

Below our “Shape Masters” are choosing polygons and quadrilaterals for the students to construct using rubber bands on their geoboards. We have studied the following polygons: Triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, and octagon. We have studied the following quadrilaterals: Square, rectangle, rhombus, trapezoid, and parallelogram.

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The students compared and contrasted 3D shapes this week in a giant Venn Diagram! They did an excellent job collaborating!

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