So Happy To Be Back!

I was so happy to come back to school today and see all of your children's smiling faces!  It will take a few days to get everyone back on track and in our routine again but today was a great start!  Thank you all for the support and understanding you have given me over the past couple of months.  I want to take some time and give some updates and let everyone know what we will be working on over the next few weeks.  

MAH - Math Vocabulary

A new list of math vocabulary words went home today to be studied during MAH.  Our quiz will be on Friday, March 4th.  Please let me know if you need any help with ideas for studying.

Math - Fractions

We will be starting a new unit on fractions in math this week.  A parent hand-out will be going home tomorrow to explain some of the concepts being taught.  The websites listed below may be helpful with any homework questions your child may have.

http://www.oakdale.k12.ca.us/cms/page_view?d=x&piid=&vpid=1391596408603

http://greatminds.net/support/parents

http://www.ojusd.org/cms/page_view?d=x&piid=&vpid=1391596408603

Reading - Non-fiction

During reading we will be reading non-fiction and learning how to determine which information is most important.  We will be thinking about main ideas, text structures, and text features.  Eventually we will use this learning to help us write our own non-fiction.  

Writing - Literary Essays & Open Response

We will be circling back to review our literary essay unit and connect this to open response which is a shorter version of literary essay where students respond to a specific question about the literature they are reading.  We will focus on learning how to cite evidence to support our thinking and connecting all of our ideas together to create cohesive writing.

Science - Energy

We launched a new science unit today on different forms of energy.  The first two we are focusing on are potential and kinetic energy.  Over the summer I applied for some materials from Hot Wheels (the toy car company) and they came in!  Students began experimenting with energy today using car tracks and Hot Wheels cars.  They made many observations and came up with many ideas about energy which we will continue to explore over the coming weeks.  Here are a few pictures of our exploration today.  To me, this is the definition of engagement!