Week of 8/11/08

Another great week for everyone!

Grades are currently online and all graded assignments came home on Friday. Grades that are below a 70% can be corrected and turned in for a grade adjustment!

Here is what we were up to this week.

Reading/Writing: We started foo the week with a graphic organizer that the students listed everything that the knew about the desert. They listed the animals, plants, insects, dangers, good points, and climate that they already knew about in the desert. Then we looked through Arizona Highway Magazines and cut out pictures of these things. We created a picture graphic organizer that is hanging in our classroom!
We also read the Cactus Hotel. This book goes through the life cycle of a cactus. It also talks about how important Saguaro cactus are to all the animals that live in the desert. They make their homes in living and dead cactus. Student drew a beautiful picture of the desert and use descriptive words to describe their desert scene. We also worked on some comprehension questions.
Our cookie writing is still going on. We will be editing paragraphs next week on 3 different types of cookies that we have tried.

Math: We are continuing with chapter 1. We are reviewing place value, number grids, tally charts, time, money, and looking through our tool boxes and Student Reference Books. We also learned to gather information using a Tally Chart and display it using a bar graph.

Science: This week we talked about what a plant needs to grow. We also decided to see if a plant could grow without soil. Students put 4 different kinds of seed into a dish. They soaked them in water for just a minute and poured the water out. Then they sat the seeds over night. Today when the observed them they noticed 3 big differences. We are going to continue watching them and do another project with them next week.

Spelling: Students received a new spelling list. The list consisted of any words that they missed on this week's test, and words that each child is misspelling in their every day wrtiting.

Morning Work: Each morning students are completing 2 assignments:
Read 4 Today and Write 4 Today. The reading assignment has a short 2 to 3 sentence paragraph and 4 questions to answer about it. The writing assignment either has 4 questions about writing and grammar or over the course of a week the student is asked to organize, write, revise, edit and publish a very short story. On Friday the students were assessed on both of these. Graded tests will come home on Monday.

Reminders:
School T-shirts - Orders due Aug 28th
School Pictures - Aug 27th Students -

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Have a wonderful weekend!