I hope you were able to and are enjoying this beautiful weekend! This week students looked at nonfiction text features to help them to understand the importance of these features. These text features help readers to make sense of what they are reading. Text features also help readers to determine what is important to the text. Many readers often skip over text features, when in fact, it only benefits them if they read them.
Some Common Text Features within Non-Fiction
* Captions: Help you better understand a picture or photograph
* Comparisons: These sentences help you to picture something {Example: A whale shark is a little bit bigger than a school bus.}
* Glossary: Helps you define words that are in the book
* Graphics: Charts, graphs, or cutaways are used to help you understand what the author is trying to tell you
* Illustrations/Photographs: Help you to know exactly what something looks like
* Index: This is an alphabetical list of ideas that are in the book. It tells you what page the idea is on.
* Labels: These help you identify a picture or a photograph and its parts
* Maps: help you to understand where places are in the world
* Special Print: When a word is bold, in italics, or underlined, it is an important word for you to know
* Subtitles: These headings help you to know what the next section will be about
* Table of Contents: Helps you identify key topics in the book in the order they are presented
If your child has the chance to read a nonfiction text in his/her nightly reading, please ask them to practice identifying these features and talk about how it helped them with their comprehension of the text.
This week in writing we worked on adding adjectives to stretch our sentences. I am also beginning to see students apply this in their daily work. Way to go!!
This week in science we read the book called Mystery Mouths. This book contains pictures of skulls of animals. Students were shown what each skull looks like and together we brainstormed ways of describing the animal’s teeth and what that would mean for the animal’s diet. Students then were given a chance to predict what the animal is and why they believe it’s that animal. I am so proud of the way students put on their thinking caps and carefully and thoughtfully used their descriptive words to come up with ways to describe each animal’s teeth shape and how that helped them to predict what the animal ate. It was fun to listen to a chorus of cheers when their predictions were right and when they were not. It was fun to discover what the animals are and what kind of adaptations they have for their survival.
Thank you so much for your continued work with math facts at home. I am so pleased to see how each child’s progressing in his/her rapid fact recall. For those that struggle, focusing on 1-2 fact families a night would be great. For example: 8,5,3 are a fact family. When they know 5+3, they also know 3+5, 8-5, and 8-3. That way the can see the relationship between the numbers and don’t get overwhelmed by trying to memorize too many. You can add 1-2 fact families per night or every other night, depending on how rapidly they can recall the facts from the previous night. I have some premade fact family triangles. If the computer based xtramath is not working, please let me know and I’ll be happy to make copies for your child to bring home to practice. This week students played a few math games to help them with addition and subtraction skills. Ask them about Capture 5 and Close to 100.
Thank you for studying spelling words at home. Each week students type in their new words on Spelling City and there are games they can play to practice. Students can also take practice tests, but the red button spelling test should be reserved for when we take their final test every Thursday in school. Our vocabulary words from Unit 1 week 1-5 are also on there. Students can review those words and also play games to help keep those new vocabulary words fresh in their minds.
Have a wonderful Sunday!
Reminders:
1. Home Learning Logs due 10/2
2. Spelling test 10/2
3. Book orders 10/2. Thank you to those of you who ordered books online. If you do not order online, please send in a check. Cash is not accepted by Scholastic Books.
4. Rivershire a.m. trip 10/3. We will be back at Half Day for lunch.
Some Common Text Features within Non-Fiction
* Captions: Help you better understand a picture or photograph
* Comparisons: These sentences help you to picture something {Example: A whale shark is a little bit bigger than a school bus.}
* Glossary: Helps you define words that are in the book
* Graphics: Charts, graphs, or cutaways are used to help you understand what the author is trying to tell you
* Illustrations/Photographs: Help you to know exactly what something looks like
* Index: This is an alphabetical list of ideas that are in the book. It tells you what page the idea is on.
* Labels: These help you identify a picture or a photograph and its parts
* Maps: help you to understand where places are in the world
* Special Print: When a word is bold, in italics, or underlined, it is an important word for you to know
* Subtitles: These headings help you to know what the next section will be about
* Table of Contents: Helps you identify key topics in the book in the order they are presented
If your child has the chance to read a nonfiction text in his/her nightly reading, please ask them to practice identifying these features and talk about how it helped them with their comprehension of the text.
This week in writing we worked on adding adjectives to stretch our sentences. I am also beginning to see students apply this in their daily work. Way to go!!
This week in science we read the book called Mystery Mouths. This book contains pictures of skulls of animals. Students were shown what each skull looks like and together we brainstormed ways of describing the animal’s teeth and what that would mean for the animal’s diet. Students then were given a chance to predict what the animal is and why they believe it’s that animal. I am so proud of the way students put on their thinking caps and carefully and thoughtfully used their descriptive words to come up with ways to describe each animal’s teeth shape and how that helped them to predict what the animal ate. It was fun to listen to a chorus of cheers when their predictions were right and when they were not. It was fun to discover what the animals are and what kind of adaptations they have for their survival.
Thank you so much for your continued work with math facts at home. I am so pleased to see how each child’s progressing in his/her rapid fact recall. For those that struggle, focusing on 1-2 fact families a night would be great. For example: 8,5,3 are a fact family. When they know 5+3, they also know 3+5, 8-5, and 8-3. That way the can see the relationship between the numbers and don’t get overwhelmed by trying to memorize too many. You can add 1-2 fact families per night or every other night, depending on how rapidly they can recall the facts from the previous night. I have some premade fact family triangles. If the computer based xtramath is not working, please let me know and I’ll be happy to make copies for your child to bring home to practice. This week students played a few math games to help them with addition and subtraction skills. Ask them about Capture 5 and Close to 100.
Thank you for studying spelling words at home. Each week students type in their new words on Spelling City and there are games they can play to practice. Students can also take practice tests, but the red button spelling test should be reserved for when we take their final test every Thursday in school. Our vocabulary words from Unit 1 week 1-5 are also on there. Students can review those words and also play games to help keep those new vocabulary words fresh in their minds.
Have a wonderful Sunday!
Reminders:
1. Home Learning Logs due 10/2
2. Spelling test 10/2
3. Book orders 10/2. Thank you to those of you who ordered books online. If you do not order online, please send in a check. Cash is not accepted by Scholastic Books.
4. Rivershire a.m. trip 10/3. We will be back at Half Day for lunch.