Mrs. Connor's
Newsletter
May 2, 2016
Classroom News
Reading Workshop
The boys and girls are scheduled to take the
spring MAP tests on the following days.
Math Test: Wednesday, May 4th at 8:45am
Reading Test: Tuesday, May 10th at 8:45am.
Please see that your child arrives at school by
8:20 so they have enough time to get settled
before testing begins. It is important that each
student gets a good night’s sleep and eats
breakfast before taking these tests.
The Sarah Adams Open House will be this
Thursday evening from 6:30 until 7:30pm.
The boys and girls will visit the BOGO Book
Fair this week. It will be open during the
school day and beginning at 6pm the night of
Open House.
If you are planning on baking an item to sell for
our Buggy Bake Sale, you or your child can
drop off the item at the school office. Mrs.
Williams will have a cart ready for all our
goodies. Thank you so much for volunteering to
bake and/or supervise! We really appreciate
your help!
Scientist of the Day
The last group of scientists will
choose their experiment this
week!
During Reading Workshop, students have been reading
fictional stories from the genre Traditional Literature.
These are stories passed down from one generation to
another. They include folktales, fairy tales, tall tales,
legends, fables, and myths. Students learned the
common elements of folktales. They often teach the
readers or listeners a lesson or moral. They reflect the
language and customs of a specific place in the world.
Finally, they have events and characters that come in
threes with an element of trickery to resolve a problem.
Readers appreciate how a writer’s use of descriptive
language helps bring the story to life. I read The Ugly
Duckling to the boys and girls. As I read, they used the
rich literary language to create mental images or visualize
what is taking place in the story and make inferences
about what will happen next! Students also learned how
to use their background knowledge or schema to draw
conclusions or infer the author’s message or theme.
I read the book Super-Completely and Totally the
Messiest to the class. The boys and girls learned how to
use the details in the story to gain a better understanding
of the characters’ traits, problems, actions and feelings.
Next, we will focus of figurative language found in
fiction stories. Examples include similes, metaphors,
idioms, hyperboles, personification and onomatopoeia.
Reading Tip: While reading with your child, ask questions that invite recall AND thinking such as , “Why do you
think ___ happened?” or “What do you think this word means?” They are learning to make inferences so you
could model this by saying, “I notice….” or “I believe…” or “This must mean that…” or “This shows that….”.
Email address: molly.connor@lz95.org
Phone Number: (847) 540-2874
Science
Math
The boys and girls have been learning
how scientists categorize living
organisms using observable features
such as having a backbone or not.
We divided those animals with a
backbone (vertebrates) into 5
groups. Ask your child to name all 5
groups. We compared and
contrasted physical traits of each
group making sure to include how
each trait helps the animals stay
alive.
The boys and girls have been busy this week learning
about fractions. We folded paper once into halves and
divided eight cubes equally between the two parts.
Students soon realized that for 1/2 you could double the
part to get the whole. We folded the paper again to get
fourths. Students took the 8 cubes and divided them
equally between the four parts. They could easily see that
each part had 2 cubes. They colored one of the four parts
to show that one-fourth of 8 cubes is 2 cubes. We
repeated the process using 12 cubes.
We planted sunflower seeds and
they have sprouted!
Social Studies
Students will soon begin a new unit
entitled Citizenship. The big idea
students will focus on during this unit is
presented as a question. Why do we
need government? Key vocabulary
words are: government, Constitution,
election, judge, Congress, Supreme
Court, monument, Washington D.C. as
the nation’s capital and the Capitol
building where Congress makes the laws.
During this unit, we will study community
helpers. Each student has chosen a
community helper to research and write
an expository essay. They are reading
books in class and learning how each
worker helps the people in their
community. They will learn what
education/training is needed to do the job
and what equipment they use.
Thanks for helping your child decorate their
community helper figure and type the final copy
of their expository paragraph!
They also used squares and rectangles divided into
equal parts to explore different representations for onehalf, one-fourth and one-third. Students are beginning to
realize that equal shares of identical figures do not need
to be the same shape. They had fun discovering that onehalf of a square does not have to be divided equally down
the middle! Often, they divided the figure into halves by
connecting opposite corners.
We will continue working with fractions and explore area
and perimeter as well!
Writing
Each student is following the writing process to plan, draft, revise
and edit an expository essay. An expository paragraph gives
information that explains a topic. It can tell how to get someplace, how
to do something or provide information on a variety of topics. Students
learned what makes an explanation easy to understand. They will
often refer back to the following ideas:




Giving all the needed information
Using easy to understand words
Staying on the subject
Putting ideas in order
I
Expository Writing will always: Teach nform
Explain.
The boys and girls have been reading about their community helper,
taking notes on a notecard and writing rough draft paragraphs to
complete their expository essay.