What We're Learning

😀 WHAT WE’RE LEARNING THIS WEEK 👍

 ✝RELIGION:  We will continue our focus on the season of Lent by reading from our purple Lenten books, which were a gift from Fr. John Di Bacco from St. Mary's Parish in Star City.  Students will create their "Christians Under Construction" that will remind us of our Lenten sacrifices (feast on....fast from).  

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✏MORNING PACKETS:   Students will work on Week 23's morning packet this week, and take the quizzes on Monday, March 9th.

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📚ENGLISH LANGUAGE ARTS (ELA):  AMPLIFY Skills and Knowledge

SPELLING - Students will be tested on the following words this Friday, 3/6.

Pattern Focus:  r-controlled vowels

Spelling Words: car, nerve, girl, turn, bar, serve, bird, purse, store, store, fur, all, chore, shirt, and hurt

AMPLIFY SKILLS:  We will continue in Skills 4 this week.  

Overall Learning Outcomes

Unit 4 is devoted to introducing more spelling alternatives for vowel sounds and three tricky spellings. Remember vowel sounds and their spellings are the most challenging part of the English writing system. Only two vowel sounds are almost always spelled just one way (/a/ and /ar/). The other seventeen vowel sounds have at least one significant spelling alternative. Several of them have many spelling alternatives.

Vowel Spellings and Sounds which are taught in this unit are:

/er/ spelled ‘er’ (her), ‘ur’ (hurt), ‘ir’ (bird)

/i/ spelled ‘y’ (myth)

/ie/ spelled ‘y’ (try), ‘igh’ (night)

/oe/ spelled ‘ow’ (snow)

/ee/ spelled ‘e’ (me), ‘y’ (funny), ‘ey’ (key)

/aw/ spelled ‘al’ (wall)

Tricky Spellings Taught in this Unit are:

‘e’ can be pronounced /e/ (pet) or /ee/ (me)

‘i’ can be pronounced /i/ (it) or /ie/ (biting)

‘y’ can be pronounced /ee/ (funny), /i/ (myth), /ie/ (try), or /y/ (yes)

Decodable Reader:  The Reader for this unit is titled The Job Hunt.  It's a fictional story that describes a nineteen-year-old girl’s search for a job in New York City with the help of her younger brother. The Introduction contains information about New York City, including a map.

Grammar: The grammar lessons for Unit 4 review singular and regular plural nouns, as well as common and proper nouns. In addition, the formation of irregular plurals , the use of apostrophe-‘s’ with nouns to indicate possession, and the use of titles, such as Mr., Mrs., Ms., and Miss, as a part of proper nouns are all introduced. Students will continue to work with verbs, reviewing action verbs, learning about to be verbs, and working with verb tenses. Synonyms, antonyms, contractions, and quotations are also reviewed.

Writing: The writing strand continues with students learning about persuasive communication, specifically how to incorporate persuasive writing as part of a friendly letter.

AMPLIFY KNOWLEDGE:   We will begin Domain 7 - Westward Expansion this week.  This domain will introduce students to an important period in the history of the United States—the time of westward expansion during the 1800s. Students will learn why pioneers were willing and eager to endure hardships to move westward. Your class will learn about important innovations in both transportation and communication during that period, which greatly increased the movement of people westward. More specifically, students will learn about Fulton’s steamboat, the Erie Canal, the transcontinental railroad, and the Pony Express. Students will also come to understand the hardships and tragedies that Native Americans endured because of westward expansion. This domain will build the foundation for learning about the U.S. Civil War and immigration later in Grade 2, as well as for learning about other periods of American history in future grades.

Unit Stories:  Going West, Mr. Fulton's Journey, The Journal of a 12-Year-Old on the Erie Canal, The Story of Sequoyah, The Trail of Tears, Westward on the Oregon Trail, The Pony Express, Working on the Transcontinental Railroad, andThe Buffalo Hunters

Unit Objectives:

Describe a pioneer family’s journey westward

Describe family life on the frontier

Explain the significance of the steamboat

Identify Robert Fulton as the developer of the steamboat

Identify steamboats, canals, and trains as new means of travel that increased the movement of people west

Describe the importance of canals

Identify the Erie Canal as the most famous canal built during the Canal Era

Explain the significance of Sequoyah’s invention of the Cherokee writing system

Explain that the U.S. government forced Native Americans from their land as the country expanded westward

Identify the Trail of Tears as a forced march of the Cherokee

Identify the Oregon Trail as a difficult trail traveled by wagon trains

Identify the Pony Express as a horseback mail delivery system

Identify the transcontinental railroad as a link between the East and the West

Identify “iron horse” as the nickname given to the first trains in America

Explain the advantages of rail travel

Explain that the development of the railroad ushered in a new era of mass exodus of the Native Americans from their land

Describe the effect of diminishing buffalo on the life of Plains Native Americans

Core Vocabulary:

📏MATH:  We complete Chp. 5: 2-Digit Addition with Regrouping this week.  Students will complete a study guide in class, and will take the chapter test on Friday, 3/6.

In this unit, students will:

~regroup ones as tens

~add to a two-digit number

~add two-digit numbers

~rewrite two-digit addition

~add 3 and 4 two-digit numbers

~word problems with two-digit addition

Vocabulary:

regroup - taking 10 ones and making them into a ten (carrying the ones to the tens place)

addend - a number that is added to another number

sum - the answer to an addition problem (addend + addend = sum)