The Doran Digest
April 2016
Volume 2, Issue 8
Important Dates
April 4-8: Spring Recess
April 18-29: Coin Drive
April 12: PTO Meeting 8:45am-10:00am
April 13-22: PARCC testing
April 21: 2 Hour Delayed Opening (Staff Dev.)
April 25-26: Single Session (Conferences)
April 25-26: Book Fair
April 29: School Store Open (Lunch)
Specials Schedule
Monday: Library 1:20-2:00 and Gym 2:05-2:45
Tuesday: Music 2:05-2:45
Wednesday: World Language 12:35-1:35 and
Gym 2:05-2:45
Thursday: Art 2:05-2:45
Friday: Computers 2:05-2:45
*Homework*
Please check your child’s agenda every night!
Practice your math facts!
Mrs. Kristin Doran
Central Avenue School
50 Central Avenue
Madison, NJ 07940
(p)973-593-3173
dorank@madisonpublicschools.org
https://twitter.com/MrsDoranCAS
What We Will Be Learning In April
Reading Workshop: In reading workshop, we will
begin our mystery book club unit! We will read the
Ballpark Mystery books as our read aloud for this
unit. Independently, readers will work in small group
book clubs to look deeply at the characteristics of
this genre. As they read, students will use clues to
describe characters in a story and explain how their
actions contribute to the sequence of events. Book
club members will contribute to discussions and set
goals for themselves as readers!
Writing Workshop: Writers are immersed in our new
realistic fiction unit! We have begun reading and
studying various examples of realistic fiction to understand character, setting, problem, solution and
point of view. Writers will gather ideas for their
own stories in their writer’s notebook, using timelines
and story mountains to organize their thoughts. Students will continue drafting stories by adding appropriate details and developing their characters by using internal and external characteristics.
Math: In this chapter, students learn about reading
and telling time to the minute. Students are taught
to convert time units in hours and minutes and to add
and subtract time. This chapter, students are introduced to the concept of temperature in conjunction
with the reading of the Fahrenheit thermometer.
Students learn how to describe weather and solve
real world problems involving temperature. Keep
practicing multiplication/division facts!
Social Studies: Our next social studies unit will be
about New Jersey’s state government and economy.
Science: In science, we have been learning about
sound. We have been doing many hands on experiments that teach us about sound, vibrations, and how
sound travels. We then used our scientific thinking
to explain how it happened.