Happy Friday!

Happy Friday!

I hope you all have had a wonderful week!  I am absolutely LOVING this beautiful weather.  If you are needing something to do tomorrow CPS & MU are teaming up to put on the Science Sleuth for elementary students and their families.  This is a free event.  I hope that if you are able to stop by that you will.  The kiddos always have a fun when they go! :)

I can't believe the end of the year is so close.  You can feel the excitement already building about the end of the year.  We had a conversation this afternoon that it is important to continue to do their job at school and that we have a lot of fun things planned for the rest of the year. We talked about that they are almost third graders and it is important to act like it. :)

Reading

This week, we worked on summarizing fiction stories.  We taught them a different strategy other than "Somebody, wanted, but, so then" this week.  We focused on identifying the main idea, details and the most important words and then using this information to create a one sentence summary.  A one sentence summary was hard for some kiddos but by today they had it down! :)  

Next week, we will be working on a similar strategy with nonfiction passages.  We will identify the main idea, details and then use this information to create a one sentence summary of the nonfiction passage.

Writing

This week, we wrapped up our rough draft for our best pet opinion writing.  Next week, we will edit it and then publish our writing.  We will be publishing our writing next week, and afterwards we are planning to use a form of technology as another way to publish our writing.  

Math

This week, we wrapped up our geometry and fraction unit.  I will be sending home this test next week.  Please review them with your student then sign and return it to school.

We took our pretest over measurement today.  We will start our measurement unit on Monday.  We will start with non-customary measurements, then move into standard measurements.  We will also be talking about different units of measure and tools to measure.  

Science

We have been observing our plant experiment, and the students are noticing what the plants need to survive.  We had a conversation that the plant with no water is hard, droopy and dying, so we now know that plants canNOT survive without water.  We also noticed that the plant with LOTS of water is also getting droopy and not really growing.  To our surprise the plant with no soil is not growing but the flowers are still okay - we had a conversation that cut flowers can live a while in just water, so we predict that the plant will slowly die.  The flower with no water is starting to grow some mold :( and the flowers are turning yellow instead of orange.  The kiddos are LOVING to read to our "Read to Me" plant - we have found plant books to read to it and the flower leaves on the plant are fuller than our control (maybe this spring & summer you should have your kiddo read to your flowers!).  We will continue to observe our plants over the next few weeks to see if our hypothesis is confirmed that plants need water, soil and sunlight to grow. 

 

Homework

We will have homework for the next 2 weeks and then will be finished with homework.  The students will have optional homework after that of reading and math facts each night.  If they do math facts and reading (15 minutes each) for at least 3 nights (starting in May), they can eat lunch in the room on Friday.

Field Trips

• April 29: Jazz Ensemble at Hickman High School, leave RBE at 9:30 & return by 11:30
• May 11: Runge Nature Center, leave RBE at 8:30 & return around 2:00

Important Dates

• April 22: "Earth Day" - Wear green or other "Earth Friendly" attire
• April 29: Jazz Ensemble field trip
• May 10: PTA Meeting (5:30)
• May 11: Runge Nature Center field trip
• May 13: Variety Show
• May 20: Field Day
• May 20: "Summer Fun" - Wear your most colorful, fun, floral outfit to kick off summer (no swimsuits)

If you are looking for something to do tomorrow afternoon, CPS & MU are teaming up to put on a Science Sleuth.  Elementary students and their families are invited.  The kiddo always have so much fun when they go, so if you have the time - go check it out!! :)  Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the warm weather!