Week of 10/20/08

Everyone had a great week off and was ready to start learning again on Monday morning!

We began our new unit of study, US History and Government. We are going to be learning about the National Level of Government this week. Specifically we will learn about the 3 branches of government at the National level.

Reading/Social Studies: We began the week with a look at the National Government and how it was created to make sure that no one person had too much power. We learned that there are three branches of government. We used a fun Schoolhouse Rock song to help us remember who was in each branch and what they did! Later on in the week we looked at the Executive Branch. We learned about the president and what his job was. We were quite surprised that he couldn't do WHATEVER he wanted, like make us eat broccoli every day for lunch! We are also learning the song Mighty Presidents. Each night for homework students should be reading different verses to the song.

In computers on Tuesday we looked at fun facts about the white house. Go to the computer blog for 10/21 and find the link to learn more!

To learn more about the presidential race visit
http://teacher.scholastic.com/scholasticnews/indepth/election2008.htm

Here are some questions that you might want to discuss with your child.

There are lots of issues that the presidential candidates talk about. What would you like to see the new president change about our education? Would you like the new president to do anything to change our environment? Could the new president do anything to make our Health Care better? What do you think they should do about the war in Iraq? Talk to your family about these issues.

Next week we are going to be writing about what we would do if we were President of the United States.

We spent a lot of time this week working on our Patriotic Performance that is November 3rd at 7pm. Students are working on memorizing the preamble of the constitution. On Friday they were given their lines for the play. These need to be memorized by Tuesday next week. We will be working on both of these things in class. In addition to the speaking parts we have been working on a bunch of different songs. Students are using the songs to work on fluency and to learn about American Government. We will be using the I'm Just A Bill Song on Monday to sequence the steps it takes for a bill to become a law you can check it out and start learning it if you would like!
(http://clerkkids.house.gov/laws/index.html).

We also used the Three Ring Circus song to continue learning about the 3 branches of government.

Friday students learned about election vocabulary. They read through a readers theater on the election process.


BY MONDAY - students should have the preamble to the Constitution memorized. They will be reciting it as a class.

Morning Work:

Quick Read- We are reading about the redwood tree this week. Students are learning about comparisons.
Quick Write-This week we are learning about words with silent e, end marks, proper nouns, and sentences or fragments.

Math: We started chapter 4 this week. This chapter is on multiplication. Here is a sample of the kind of problems we have done so far. There are 4 boxes of pencils and 6 in each box. How many pencils are there all together? Here is a site for computer flash cards if you would like to practice at home.
http://home.indy.rr.com/lrobinson/mathfacts/mathfacts.html

Character Counts: Mrs. Jones came to visit our class on Monday. We learned all about Trust. Ask you child about the blind fold game that we played! Also, we talked about different people that we do trust and people who need to earn our trust.

Report cards came home on Friday. Second quarter grades will be on-line soon!