September 30, 2014

Welcome to our class blog!  I will be posting about things the kids are learning, upcoming tests, and important dates.

Upcoming Dates
October 1 - Vocabulary Test - Flocabulary Unit 1
October 13 -Student and Staff Holiday

If you have questions, my email is amy.lindsay@springbranchisd.com

Math
We have been estimating sums and differences. The students were given addition and subtraction problems and they were solving to find an exact answer.  Then, they used estimation as a tool to see if their exact answer is reasonable, or makes sense. When I said the word reasonable, the kids shouted "makes sense".  I have become a cheerleader for our class to help us remember some of this important vocabulary and what it means.
Estimating products and quotients have also been a part of our Estimation Unit. We used rounding to work with estimating products.  We used related multiplication facts to estimate quotients.  If you know your child does not know his/her facts, please make sure he/she is studying at home.  This will also be very helpful as we have many timed tests this year.  There is also a reminder on homework each night.

Social Studies
We learned about the Regions of Texas.  The information our class learned has been about the location, climate, ways of life, plants,and animals.  We will be working on a project soon as a culminating activity for this unit.

Writing
The students brainstormed ideas about themselves and their experiences in hopes to use one of them as a topic for a personal narrative.  Each student chose a topic and completed a prewriting activity using the Kernel method. The students answered questions about his/her chosen topic and then that prewriting was then used to launch into drafting a personal narrative. We will work with revising and editing to bring it to a final copy.

Reading
We have started a read aloud titled Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo about a squirrel that gets vacuumed up into a high powered vacuum cleaner. Ask your child to tell you about it.
We are studying the genre of historical fiction. The students are learning the traits of this type of book. These are books that are based on a real historical event and the author has included some fiction information to go along with the topic which makes it historical fiction.

Science
We are learning about mixtures and solutions.  We have learned the attributes of each and how some solutions, which are special mixtures can be separated by using evaporation. We dissolved 3 substances into 3 different cups of water: salt, sugar, and raw sugar. Each object dissolved into the cup of water it was in.  Which substance will be left in the cup after the water evaporates? We will be watching our cups to find out.