Testing & New Skills Thursday is our Literacy MAPS testing day! We're also excited to introduce cursive writing this week. Students will have plenty of time to practice their new skills, and we'll be sending home a practice packet to reinforce what we're learning in class. This is not homework—it's optional practice for those who want extra reinforcement at home.

Writing & Reading We're diving into our new module, "Tell a Tall Tale," where students will explore the unique characteristics of tall tales and identify the moral or lesson within the stories we read. Alongside this, students continue working on their informational essays as we build stronger writing skills.

Comprehension & Assessment Students will be answering comprehension questions about our stories and completing a reading comprehension assessment with short-answer responses focused on identifying the main idea. This helps us ensure students are understanding and can articulate what they've learned.

Reading & Literature

• Finishing our "From Farm to Table" unit by reading and discussing the story It's Our Garden
• Taking a comprehension quiz to show what we've learned
• Exploring text features that help us understand non-fiction stories

Language Skills

• Reviewing prefixes and suffixes to build vocabulary and reading comprehension

Writing Project

• Continuing research for our Information Essay! Students chose a person they find interesting or want to learn more about. They'll be writing a multi-paragraph essay sharing what they discover.

Important Note Please be aware that we will not have Literacy instruction on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday due to CMAs (state testing). We'll resume our regular literacy schedule on Friday.

This is a short week, and we have lots of exciting learning happening! Here's what students will be working on:

Writing & Reading:

• We're kicking off each class with 10-minute writing sessions to build writing fluency and confidence.
• Students will read "Edison's Greatest Inventions" and complete a quiz to check comprehension.
• We'll practice summarizing skills using the story as our guide.

Essays & Writing Projects:

• Students are in the final stages of their Deforestation Essays—this week they'll finish typing or handwriting their drafts.

Grammar & Language:

• We're diving into complex sentences, learning about independent and dependent clauses to strengthen sentence variety and clarity.

Literary Analysis:

• Students will explore problem and solution in stories of their choice, deepening their ability to identify and analyze story elements.

Assessments:

• We'll be taking two assessments this week to check understanding of key concepts.

Here's a quick look at what our class will be working on this week:

• Daily writing: Students will write for 9–10 minutes each day and we'll share some of our stories in class.
• Spelling: Word work practice with this week’s spelling list; we will do daily practice with the words and the spelling test will be on Thursday (instead of Friday).
• Grammar: Learning and practicing subject and object pronouns.
• Reading: Finish reading Energy Island (from last week) and complete an author’s purpose activity.
• Read & quiz: Students should read Storyteller’s Candle and take the accompanying quiz.
• Word study: Focus on the suffix -ment (meaning and usage).
• Assessment: Short module assessment this week — we'll be giving these more often to help students become familiar with taking computer-based tests like CMAS.

This week in Literacy we’ll focus daily on building fluency. Students will practice choral reading together as a class and whisper reading independently on other days to improve accuracy, expression, and pacing.

We’re also starting a new module, “Making a Difference.” To launch the unit we’ll introduce the topic, watch the Get Curious video, and review the module’s knowledge map. Instruction and activities this week include:

• Phonics/spelling: long O words — golden, snow, toast, scold, oat, load, row, soap, foam, blow
• Vocabulary & word study: compound words
• Shared reading: Let’s Build a Park — author’s purpose focus
• Read-aloud & comprehension: Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table — quiz, text structure, and point of view
• Grammar: past-tense verbs practice

This week in literacy we will:

• Read the story T.J. The Siberian Tiger Cub and complete a short reading quiz to check comprehension.
• Write a response focused on cause and effect based on events in the story.
• Practice opinion writing: students will learn how to state an opinion and support it with reasons.
• Review common vs. proper nouns with quick, hands‑on activities.
• Study the suffix -ly to form adverbs and practice using them in sentences.
• Work on using the verbs be and have correctly in both speaking and writing.

How you can help at home:

• Ask your child to retell the main events of T.J. and identify one cause and one effect.
• Have them tell you an opinion about the story and give two reasons.
• Point out nouns and proper nouns in books you read together, and listen for words that end in -ly.
• Practice short sentences using “is/are” and “has/have.”

Hello families — this week we begin Module 6: Animal Behaviors. Here's what your child will be doing:

• Reading: Two texts — Frozen Alive and This Is Your Life Cycle.

  • Focus: identifying text and graphic features, determining main idea and supporting details, and finding text evidence to support answers.
  • Assessment: a quiz on This Is Your Life Cycle later this week.

• Phonics & Spelling: Practice with ar, or, and ore word patterns.

  • Spelling test on Friday. Daily activities will build toward the test.

• Writing: Daily 9-minute writing sessions to build composition skills and stamina.

  • We’ll begin an opinion writing unit on deforestation, starting with a class debate to generate ideas.

• Grammar: Lessons on the difference between

  • your vs. you’re
  • theirvs. there vs. they’re

• Monday: A guest will visit to talk about the stock show. Afterward we’ll focus on sequencing stories.
• Daily: Students will write for 7 minutes straight each day to build writing stamina.
• This week’s reading: We will finish the story Brother at Bat and then take a quiz. Students will also practice sequencing the events from the story.
• Grammar: We’ll learn about different verb tenses later in the week.
• Friday: A fun holiday activity featuring descriptive writing.

This week in literacy:

• Vocabulary: We’ll review synonyms and antonyms.
• Grammar: Students will practice using quotation marks, capitalization, and punctuation with quotes.
• Conventions: We’ll study common abbreviations.
• Reading: Read "Two Bear Cubs" and take the quiz — we’ll use the story to explore elements of drama, theme, and other literary elements.
• Phonics: Practice the /aw/ vowel sound.
• Writing: Students will work on descriptive writing.

At home you can help by asking your child to tell you the meaning of new words, read aloud passages from "Two Bear Cubs," and practice writing a few descriptive sentences about a person, place, or object

This week in Language Arts, we are exploring new vocabulary from our stories The Traveling Trio and Gigi and the Wishing Ring. Students are practicing summarizing the stories and identifying their themes. We will also take a quiz on both stories and delve into the elements of drama.

In spelling, we have a test on Friday featuring 10 words with consonant digraphs. Our writing focus continues on descriptive writing, along with suffixes -er and -or, the rule for changing y to i in certain words, and both irregular and regular plural nouns.

This week in Language Arts, students will focus on descriptive writing and practicing RACE responses to improve how they answer questions. We will take an online module assessment that can read the stories and questions aloud to support your child if needed. We will also review adjectives to strengthen their descriptive skills.

Additionally, students will be introduced to a new module called Stories on Stage. This unit explores the parts of a play, including reader’s theatre, and the important elements involved. Over the next three weeks, your child will practice and prepare for a reader’s theatre performance at the end of the module.

This week, students will finish typing their narratives and focus on several key skills: using commas in a series, learning new vocabulary from the story Why the Statue of Liberty is Green, and taking a quiz on the story. We will also explore abstract and concrete nouns, find the central idea, study conjunctions and pronouns, examine literary elements and author’s purpose, and learn about the prefix "im." Additionally, students are working on their descriptive essays.

How You Can Support at Home

Encourage your child to read for at least 20 minutes every night. Their descriptive essay will be about "The Best Place on Earth," such as grandma’s house, the zoo, or their own home. Talk with them about what place they want to write about and ask them to describe it using adjectives. This conversation will help them develop rich, vivid descriptions for their essay.

This week in class, we will be focusing on a Common Writing Assessment where students will write an informative essay. We’re also learning new vocabulary words and wrapping up our personal narratives. In grammar, we’re practicing commas in a series to help with writing clarity. For phonics, we’re focusing on the letter sounds j, k, and kw. During reading, we will explore the story The Flag Maker and complete a quiz to check comprehension, including multiple-meaning words. Additionally, I will be conducting progress monitoring for DIBELS to support your child’s reading growth.