Current Curriculum
Reading: During this month, we will be engaging in extensive comprehension practice and developing our close reading skills with short passages. The students will be exposed to a variety of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry passages, as well as develop strategies to comprehend those passages. These lessons will help prepare them for the upcoming state assessments. We will also be reading about the Revolutionary War and colonial America during Reading Workshop. This Reading Workshop unit correlates with our current social studies unit. Please remind your child that they do have nightly reading homework. Our goal is to read a “just right book” for 150 minutes at home each week, which comes to about 30 minutes a night during the school week. If they are busy during the week, please remind them to get a head start over the weekends. The weekly task is always due on Fridays.
Writing: Our biographical sketches were completed and are on display outside our classroom. The students have much to be proud of and created magazine worthy articles! Our next pieces will pertain to persuasive writing. We are currently working on persuading people to agree with our points of view on issues of our choice. Some of our student chosen topics pertain to school uniforms, canceling recess, and school lunches. I must say we have some very good arguments on these and other issues! Then we will be pretending to live during the Revolutionary War era and write persuasive letters to convince me to be a loyalist or a patriot.
Math: In Mrs. Brys’ class, the students are currently working through topic 10, which pertains to adding and subtracting fractions. In Mrs. Gildea’s and Mr. Micieli’s math classes the students are learning about decimals and fractions. All of the students will benefit from practicing their multiplication/division facts each night!
Science & Social Studies:
In science, we continue to learn about electricity and engage in partner experiments. This is an inquiry based unit that is always very exciting for the students.
During social studies, the students have learned about the French & Indian War and are know learning about colonial America. During this unit of study, we focus on the causes, main events, and results of the Revolutionary War. This unit of study integrates nicely with our reading and writing workshop.
Health: February is National Dental Health Month. During health we discussed teeth, types of teeth, and good dental hygiene. We were very fortunate to have local dentist Dr. Vaccaro, from the dental office of Drs. Molino and Vaccaro, come into our class as a guest speaker. He talked to the students about the importance of taking care of their teeth, good dental hygiene, dental concerns for kids in their age group, and about being a dentist. The students asked some great questions and really enjoyed having Dr. Vaccaro in our room. They learned a lot from him and we greatly appreciate him taking the time to come in and talk with us!
