Learning Links
Heather Smith & Adriane Reinelt
February 12, 2016
Valentine's Party Thank You
A big heartfelt thank you to Mrs. Wheeler and our families for supporting a wonderful Valentine´s Party. We LOVED our party! A great time was had by all.
Playground Enhancement- On The Border Fundraiser Feb. 24
SPE School Fair - Classroom Basket Donations
Social Studies - PLEASE HELP...Donations Needed
Thank you for supporting our Young Entrepreneurs. They were so excited to share their products at our Dolphin Pod Place Business Expo. The results are in from the voting and the following entrepreneurs will have their products go into production late next week:
- Devon- Amazing Snow Globe
- Brooklyn- Paper Bag Book Cover
Donations are needed for our production process. We would appreciate if you could send any of the following items to school. Thanks much!!!
Snow Globe donations needed:
- recycled glass jars with lids
- re-purposed small plastic toys that could fit in a jar (like Happy Meal toys)
- glitter any color
Paper Bag Book Cover donations needed:
- recycled brown paper grocery bags
- spiral notebooks- any size or composition notebooks
Economy Home Learning Conversation:
- Ask your Expert Entrepreneur to go through the family recycling bin to find recycled glass jars with lids and recycled brown paper grocery bags to donate for our product production.
Yearbook Orders due March 4
Please note...SPE participates in a school-wide yearbook signing at the end of the year. It's always nice when students have a yearbook to participate in the signing. Students who do not have a yearbook can gather signatures on a sheet of paper.
Leader of the Week - Gauge
Thank you Josie for your leadership this past week and continue to lead on this week as our class Vice-President!
Reading- Book Clubs
Reading Home Learning Conversation: Have a discussion with your reader about the different strategies we have practiced this week and what they have learned about their series as a whole.
Writing- Persuasive Essay
Unit 3 Persuasive Writing: Writers have continued to explore planning topics for our persuasive essay unit. We have looked at a mentor essay about serving pizza for lunch as a way for writers to begin with the end in mind and see what their final essay should look like. Writers have created a top 3-5 list of their favorite brainstormed problems that could be turned into a persuasive sentence. We talked in detail about turning a problem (not enough locker room) into a statement that could persuade others (every student should have two lockers).
Writers are also beginning to brainstorm the 3 reasons why they feel their topic is important. Some writers are noticing that they have certain topics that they feel stronger about than others.
Writing Home Learning Conversation: Ask your writer to share their top 3-5 ideas that they are considering to use for their persuasive essay. Encourage them to elaborate about why they feel so strongly about these specific topics.
Word Study
Word study groups had their test today. We had 10 students that scored 10/10 on both spelling and sort!
Word Study Home Learning Conversation: Have a discussion with your student about how they did on their word study test and ask them how they could improve or maintain their score.
Leader in Me- Respect
Leader in Me Home Learning Connection: Ask your leader to share what the meaning of respect is. Also have them share some ways that they personally can be proactively showing respect.
Science - Sound
We also discovered that high pitched sounds are created by fast vibrations and that low pitched sound is created by slow vibrations. Loud sounds (high volume) are created by big vibrations and soft sounds (low volume) are created by small vibrations.
Next week we will investigating sound phenomena through various hands-on experiences. Stay tuned for more amazing discoveries with our scientists.
Science Home Learning Conversation:
- Have your scientist demonstrate and describe the following: a high pitch sound, a low pitch sound, loud volume, and soft volume.
Math - Telling Time
We have been involved in many time experiences in the classroom this week. Evidence of your child's progress with time is in your child's Friday Folder. Please review these activities and continue to make telling time visible in your home with daily conversations about family schedules.
The following link provides numerous online time activities. Encourage your mathematician to play a few of these games over break: time games websites
Continue to have your mathematician practice basic multiplication facts using his/her flashcards or the multiplication.com link below. For those students who have not yet mastered addition and subtraction facts, please continue to practice and grow fact fluency.
Math Home Learning Conversation:
- Have your mathematician create a daily schedule and engage in conversation around elapsed time.
Heather Smith
Email: hasmith@clarkston.k12.mi.us
Website: bit.ly/smithreinelt
Phone: 248-623-3857
Adriane Reinelt
Email: amreinelt@clarkston.k12.mi.us
Website: bit.ly/smithreinelt
Phone: 248-623-3857