Ms. France's Friendly Forest Friends

                          WELCOME TO THE NEW SCHOOL YEAR 2025-2026!!!!

Celebrate Literacy Week is January 26th - January 30th. We are going to kick off Literacy Week on Monday with wearing red, white, and blue to help celebrate 250 years of America through reading. Wednesday we can dress as campers and grab a book to read in the great outdoors (well at least outside on the court). We will end Literacy Week with the Character Parade on Friday! We will also have a Community Volunteer guest reader on Friday! Looking forward to a fantastic week of celebrating our fabulous readers! 

We go to the library one day a week so please make sure you are reading those books daily! Math Homework is nightly, so please make sure to check your child's binder, and thank you for signing those Monday Folders weekly!

      We are going to start the third nine weeks in ELA with similes, metaphors, and alliteration. We will continue to review author's purpose. perspective, and opinion, as well as central idea and relevant details, author's purpose, and text features (photographs with captions, headings, subheadings, bold print words) We will also continue to review poetry, focusing on rhyme scheme. We will also continue to review character's perspective. (We will also continue to review theme: what is the central message/moral), always reviewing plot and story structure. Who are the characters, where is the setting, what is the problem, the solution, and main events? We will also have our weekly word application (spelling and vocabulary words to know across the curriculum) on Friday. Our UFLI Lesson Numbers can be found in your child's agenda or on the calendar below every Monday. After every cold read, we will Team Time on it in class and then it will go home in the following Monday Folder for you to review. Our next cold reads will be in mid-December on author's opinion/claim.

SKILLS WE ARE WORKING ON: Comprehension: Retell a text. Review: character, setting, plot, compare and contrast and theme. Vocabulary Strategy: Context Clues.  Synonyms/Antonyms. Conventions: Plurals -y to -ies and Apostrophes to form contractions. We are also working on using a dictionary. Context/Connotation and Homonyms/Homophones.

 In writing we will continue to work on central ideas, strong introductions using either question, question, statement OR whether _____,  _____, and/or _______, _________ is _______ in two (ways, reasons, or qualities). And as always, we are continue to find evidence in the text that support the main idea that proves the controlling main idea. We are practicing elaboration starters: Imagine if, what if, this means, put another way. Finally, as we revise and edit our work we double check to make sure the transition words are there to connect sentences together. Some examples are: according to (cite the source), therefore, likewise, just like, and consider ___. We then wrap up with a conclusion that restates the controlling main idea.

In Math we are working on adding and subtracting within fact families, especially in word problems. We will continue to review ten more, ten less, one hundred more, and one hundred less. As well as greater than and less than, and ordering and comparing numbers. Our next assessment will be in January with addition and subtraction with regrouping within multi-step word problems. Looking ahead to February, we will begin measurement that not only will involve students actually measuring items found in the classroom, but also solve real-world word problems incorporating measurement. 

Please continue to review place value with hundreds, tens, and ones, ten more, ten less, hundred more, hundred less, and fact fluency. Regrouping is necessary in second grade and onward, so please continue to practice that skill all year. Practicing subtracting from a zero is an essential skill!

      We will still spiral review two digit numbers, place value with standard form, expanded form, and word form, as well as add ten more, subtract ten less, add one hundred more, subtract one hundred less. We are also practicing facts every day to become more fluent with our adding, subtracting with numbers 0-12. Math Homework is Monday-Thursday nights, evens on the front page and all of the back practice page. Fact Fluency assessments are every Friday. Please practice multiplication facts 0-12 every night! Flashcards are a great way to practice fact fluency! Our next math tests will take place over the course of the next few weeks, once we have mastered two-digit addition and subtraction.

We are going to learn all different topics in Science and Social Studies each nine weeks. We started science with the Nature of Science: What is a scientist? What are tools scientists use? How can we be scientists and collect data? And end the first nine weeks with rocks, soil, and severe weather. We will then move into matter to start the second nine weeks. Liquids, solids, and gases have size and shape and we will differentiate between the three. We will also review the water cycle and temperature. We are continuing with habitats and completing our habitat project this month, that coincides with our Zoo Field Trip! We will then move on to the human body, life cycles and plants and animals, and even start to plant our flowers!

In Social Studies we are learning all about maps and globes, continents, and large bodies of water. Our next assessment will be at the end of January with Colonial America/early 1900s. We studied Native Americans from the end of November to Winter Break and each small group created wonderful dioramas for each region. Regions, contributions, and what each tribe is known for was our focus! We will continue to display these amazing projects!

 As always any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out at colleen.france@tvcs.org.