Have a Good Weekend

We had a lot of fun on Friday learning about how light reflects and refracts, as well as learning how the eye works and experimenting with how our eyes work together to give us a 3-D picture of the world. We got to read chapter 6 in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and learned some new vocabulary such as: treason, fraternizing, Imperial, and differ. We talked a little bit about what happens on Inauguration Day and why it is always a historic day for our country. We also had our class picture and everyone looked great for it!

I got the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe quiz from Wednesday grades and sent that home with the students Friday. While the students overall did a good job on the test I noticed that as a class we had some weaknesses in using context clues to figure out words, understanding figurative language, and in identifying parts of speech in real life examples. Those will definitely be some literary devices we work on in the upcoming weeks as we continue to read. If you want to help work on those things from home, we will especially be focusing on parts of speech, similes, metaphors, personification, and summarizing what they have read in their own words. And please encourage your student to return to the text as a reference. They will be allowed to use their books during all Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe quizzes and tests and becoming familiar with the text as well as learning how to go back to it for answers will help them further on the tests.

HOMEWORK 1/20:
Reading 40 minutes
Lesson 12 final paragraph
Inauguration Day packet

Have a great weekend!
~Miss Carnahan

Welcome Back

Last week was a lot of fun, seeing how hard the students worked on their Rome projects and prepared their presentations. They all did a wonderful job and I was so proud of their knowledge on their diverse topics as well as their insightful questions asked after each presentation. While there were a few questions that were asked every time (how long did it take you; what was your favorite part; and why did you choose this topic?) many of the questions showed genuine interest in each topic presented.

I'm a little saddened to say that our unit on Rome has ended, but it is with utmost delight that I can say we have begun learning about the Vikings and I'm sure the students will enjoy their history and culture nearly as much as they enjoyed learning about Roman history and culture.

We will also begin a new unit in Science tomorrow on light and how the eye works. I'm hoping to fit in some good discussions and basic experiments on how light works throughout this unit to get the students thinking about and really engaged in the subject.

We have MAP testing happening this week, which is a school-wide computer test, to gauge the students' progress. We took the initial tests at the beginning of the school year, and are in the midst of the mid-year tests. Because of this our schedule got a little interrupted today. We will be back on track tomorrow, starting with a new routine of visiting the school library on Tuesday mornings!

We started reading "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" today in class. I will be putting up volunteer sign-ups some time this afternoon for reading groups on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 12:25-1:10pm. If you are fingerprint cleared and would like to come volunteer in the classroom, reading groups are something the students look forward to daily. 

HOMEWORK 1/9:
20 Minutes of reading
Spalding 10 words 3x (I accidentally skipped a word today but they will be responsible for knowing that word too. We will go over "cousin" tomorrow in class)
Finish reading "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" (p 9-10)
The Viking World worksheet
Week 21 Day 1
Poem "Dream Variation" due February 1

~Miss Carnahan

Weekend Homework

Since we have a few tests coming up next week, I left the weekend to mostly study for those tests, as well as begin working on the Rome project. Due to a surprise fire drill today we did not have a chance to go through the Rome study guide, but we finished reading everything and they have learned everything to answer all the questions on their study guides. If they do not know the answer to any questions, I have uploaded an answer key to the "Study Guide" album on Bloomz. We were able to make it through the science study guide today, and I have a key up in the "Study Guide" album on Bloomz for that as well, just as a reference.

We also began talking today about making outlines for our Rome projects so that writing the report will be easier. I handed out a single page outline to get them thinking about how they wanted to organize and begin writing their paper.

The parents also have some homework this weekend. I mentioned early in the week that I was sending home a form for the parents to fill out so we could have a better conversation during conferences in January. I have had a few parents who have already returned those forms, and I thank you for your feedback. However I have a lot of parents who have not yet filled those out or have not sent them in with their students. The form says they are due on Monday, December 12, and I will begin checking in earnest whether they have been turned in at that point. Thank you so much for taking a few minutes to fill out that form so we can have better conversations during conferences. Also, please sign up for a conference slot on January 3 or 4, or let me know of another time that works for you. I would like to make sure that is all planned before we go away for Winter break.

Dates to keep in mind: we will begin reciting poems and take our Rome test on Tuesday, December 13; we will be taking our science test on Wednesday, December 14. I am hoping to have Little House on the Prairie finished next week and we might be taking a quiz on the book next Thursday, December 15. It would not be a large quiz but just something to let me know they have understood some of the events of the book.

Have a wonderful weekend. If you have any questions, email or send me a Bloomz message.

~Miss Carnahan

Welcome Back

I hope everyone had a relaxing and enjoyable break. The students are definitely energized to be back in school. We had a great day learning about the Roman army, muscles, and began reading Little House on the Prairie

Since we did not have Spalding homework last week, many of the students forgot that I have begun sending home the week's worth of spelling words on Monday, so be on the lookout for that and keep it for the rest of the week.

We began reading Little House on the Prairie today, and will be reading it for the next few weeks. Please send in your child's copy of the book starting tomorrow so they can participate. Also, we did not finish reading chapter 1 in class, so part of their homework will be to finish the chapter. They can include that in their 20 minutes of reading for the evening. We ended on page 13, so there are only a few pages left for them to read.

I am sending home two different papers for science, one that will be due tomorrow and one that will be due on December 16. The paper that is due tomorrow has the title "Name That Muscle" and requires your student to do as many push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and jumping jacks they can. The back of that page has another activity that they are not required to do. The other paper, which will be due on December 16 is called "Work Out Your Heart" and is just a calendar to keep track of how often a week your student exercises for 20 minutes or more.

The last worksheet for homework today is a reading on the Roman Army. We talked a lot about them in class today so the reading should just be a re-enforcement of what we have already discussed, as well as a few questions that should be in the reading.

I announced to the class today that the poem "Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Night" will need to be ready to be presented on December 13. They received a copy of the poem at the beginning of November on a bright green piece of paper. So just add that to your calendar as well.

We have another due date coming up for the Roman Project Week project. They will need to be turning in three details that they will be focusing on in their project soon. This is to ensure that they are learning time management as well as alleviate the stress of leaving it all until the end.

Have a wonderful evening!
~Miss Carnahan

Quarter 2

Hey, as I mentioned in parent teacher conferences, we are transitioning to Bloomz this quarter.

Please email me if you have any questions or are struggling to log on and we will work to fix the problem.

~Miss Carnahan

Quarter 1 Week 7

I apologize for falling off the blog wagon for the past week.

Last week was a fun week: we began learning about Canada last week, as well as began wrapping up our unit on animal classification. We worked on addition with regrouping and subtraction with borrowing and had a great discussion in Touchpebbles on Friday. This upcoming week will be full of tests that wrap up a few units we have been studying

Spalding:
act, been, be, yesterday, among, question, quest, doctor, size, December, dozen, there, tax, number, October, reason, fifth, baking, bake, bowl, cheap, cheerful, chicken, driving, drive, echoes, echo, fairy, knock, leather

Science
We finish our study guide on Monday and then have a classification test on Wednesday. On Thursday we begin Ecology by talking about what it is and what it means

Math
We finish up regrouping and borrowing multiple times and have a test on Thursday. We have started trying to do Rocket Math daily as a warm up to math

Grammar
We will be practicing classifying sentences with prepositional phrases in them and begin learning a list of the prepositions.

Literature
We will talk about sequencing events, begin reading groups this week, and continue our discussion of what poetry is and how to understand and analyse it.

History
We continue to learn more about Canada and will talk about the earliest explorers to discover Canada.

There are quite a few tests this week, but I am confident that the students will do great on them. Have a wonderful afternoon.

~Miss Carnahan

Quarter 1 Week 5

We made it through another great week of class, learning all sorts of new things. We even started touchpebbles this week, talking about revenge and whether revenge is ever ok.

Next week we won't have school on Monday (Happy Labor Day!) but other than that we will have a pretty normal week. I am hoping to start reading groups in the next little bit, so be on the look out for a signup genius being sent out.

Spalding
Because we don't have school Monday, we will only have 21 words this week: learn, wonder, pair, pear, pare, check, prove, heard, hear, inspect, itself, always, something, expect, need, thus, woman, women, young, fair, fare

History
We have been talking about geographical features in class, and this week the students will be making their own islands with different geographical features. I will send home a list of all the geographical features we have talked about as a reference. We will also have a little quiz on some of the newer features on Thursday.

Grammar
We begin talking about different ways of expressing ourselves, both in formal and informal language. We will begin a creative writing project this week as we learn what a rough draft is and how to use a rough draft in writing.

Literature
We continue to read Trumpet of the Swan and have a fun activity with tongue twisters for this week.

Science
We continue with classification this week, learning about both reptiles and amphibians, and the differences and similarities between the two types of animals.

Enjoy your Monday off celebrating Labor Day

~Miss Carnahan