Unit 5 Week 3



Kindergarten will read the story Seeds. 
We will learn that if we plant a seed in the ground and water it and it gets enough sun, the seed will turn into a plant with seeds just like the seed we planted.
We will see pictures of acorns, pumpkins  seeds, pear seeds, sunflower seeds and determine that every seed looks different because they all make a different plant. 
We will use our retelling cards to help us remember our new vocabulary.

Our sight words this week are
was
here

Please review the sight words with your children until they know them with ease.

The letter we will focus on is
u
We will sing a song, read a poem with u words and a poem about seeds.

We will also discuss the position words in, out, over and under and check to see if we knew which picture came next. Last we draw a plant in the story and write about it.



First Grade will
read an Informational Nonfiction book about Bicycles.  We will compare how old and new bicycles are alike and different.  We will see that the first bicycles did not have pedals.  We will build their vocabulary by learning synonyms for familiar words.  The phonics lesson is on the ar sound and we wil  add letters to ar to make words.  We will discuss cause and effect and practice finding the effect of events.  Then we will review our color words and  write directions by coloring pictures.



Second Grade will read a true story about Discovering Shipwrecks.  It discusses what causes shipwrecks to how shipwrecks are found.  In particular it discusses the Titanic which sunk in 1912 and the Atocha which was caught by a hurricane in 1622.
Then we will classify types of shipwrecks and names of ships.  We will work on finding details that support the main idea. Our phonics lesson will be the schwa a sound like adult, afraid and asleep.  Our grammar lesson this week is on possessive pronouns ( his, their, her) which take the place of possessive nouns.



Third Grade will read Making Waves.
It is about different kinds of boat races around the world. We will read about snake boat races in India, dragon races in Hong Kong and ice boat racing which began with the Dutch.  Some new vocabulary words are resistance, synchronized and prow.
Our grammar lesson this week is about possessive nouns and pronouns.
Possessive is a word that shows ownership or who or what something belongs to. For most possessives add 's but if the words end with s just add an apostrophe at the end of the word.  Example: seal's skin or seals' skins
Then we will looked at verbs that end with a consonant y and learn that when we make a plural we add y to i and add es.  Last we will worked on understanding possessive pronouns.  We should know that  pronouns replace nouns but now we will learn that possessive pronouns (his, her, their) replace possessive nouns.



When reading So Many Fish
  Fourth Grade will learn what makes a fish a fish. (backbones, gills and fins) to the 3 different kinds of fish (jawless, cartilaginous and bony)  to the different kinds of water that fish swim in.  We will learn about the abyss and how it is uncharted water because until recently scientists could not go there since it is so deep and dark. Ask your children what is special about a photophore fish. 
We will work on understanding analogies which are how words are alike or different.  Our book gives an example "hand is to glove as foot is to shoe."
Then we will play a game and try  to find the best analogies.
Then we will study facts which are statements that can be proven to opinions which cannot be proven but can be supported or explained.  Last we will look at adjectives of comparison  and learn when to add er and est to our adjectives.
We will also learn that when we are comparing two things we just add er to our adjective.  When we are comparing more than two we use est. 


Fifth Grade will read the Nonfiction book
The Adamson's Living With Animals.
It tells the history of a couple who were naturalists and who lived in Kenya, Africa. We will discover that through their work the world  knows so much more about wild cats.  It tells how they became interested in their life's work and about a lion cub named Elsa. Some of you made have heard of Joy Adamson's book Born Free.
This week the skills we will focus on will be learning about the meanings of the prefixes dis, in, min and pre.  We also will work on finding more antonyms (opposite meanings) to words and we looked for cause and effect in our story.
Cause meaning the reason behind an action or event and effect which is the result of the action.  Then we will learn the words comparative and superlative which are used when adjectives (comparatives) compare 2 things and
superlatives compare a group of more than 2 things.  Example taller, tallest.



I hope you all had pleasant time with your family on our day off.