Classroom News Find out what we are learning this month.

 Look At What's Happening in Room 203 ...

 Spelling   

Students will have a phonics-based spelling list each week.  On Mondays we review the skill for the week and take a pretest, and the quiz will be given each Friday.  

• Nightly Practice Book homework provides students with spelling practice. Students may also visit www.spellingcity.com for more opportunities to work with words when needed.

Reading   

Students will read a story in our anthology each week, and will focus on a strategy for becoming better readers.  They will read short stories to practice similar strategies, and apply these to their independent reading.  There will be author and genre studies throughout the year.

• Many genres of literature will be explored including poetry, nonfiction, realistic fiction, historical fiction, fables, folktales, legends, and fairy tales 
• Some of our featured authors will be Tomie dePaola, Beverly Cleary and Roald Dahl
• At home, read anything and everything. From recipes and newspapers to magazines, letters, postcards and your favorite picture and chapter books.  Read with an adult or read to a younger sibling.  Read...read...read! 

Language and Writing  

Each week students will learn elements of grammar and the structure of writing.  We will also practice different genres of writing as well as the process of writing from brainstorming to publishing. 

• Students will begin the year with narrative writing, focusing on different types of sentences including statements, questions, commands, and exclamations.  They will review the basic parts of sentences, punctuation, and capitalization.  They will also learn about different types of nouns, tenses of verbs, and adjectives. Writing will include stories, poetry, informational paragraphs, explanatory paragraphs, responding to literature, how tos, and friendly letters.  

Mathematics 

This year students will explore math concepts that cover number sense and place value, computation and operations, patterns and relationships, data analysis, measurement, and geometry.  They will practice ordering numbers, addition and subtraction with regrouping, and most importantly, multiplication, and division. Currently students need to have mastered their addition and subtraction facts to 20, and have automatic recall of multiplication and division facts up to 100.   Multiplication, fractions, and understanding the characteristics of two dimensional shapes will be focal points of study this year.

Science      

Students will explore three major units of study

• The properties of water and the water cycle 
• Rocks, minerals & earth materials.  
• The life cycle of plants  

Social Studies   

Students will review geography basics including map reading skills, and learn about the history of the state of Massachusetts including the Wampanoag people who were native to southeastern Massachusetts prior to the Pilgrims, the Pilgrim journey, the life of the Puritans, colonization, and the American Revolution.  Students will also learn about Scituate's rich history in order to make observations about how their town and state has changed throughout the years.  

Teacher Websites © 2012 Edline