Finishing up Money

Our spelling patterns for this week are words that end in "k" or "ck".  Words that show this pattern are soak, bark, cheek, break, bank, tusk, clock, check, luck, sack, and trick. I encourage students to spell any word with these patterns even if is not on the list by listening for the sounds. Some students work on fewer words. Spending time on Spelling City is a great way to practice the words. Just Google Spelling City.





As we finish our unit on money it is still a good idea for most students to practice counting coins and bills up to $10. Pretend charge them for their supper! to watch TV! to use electricity for electronic games! We are doing multi-step problems where students need to find out how much each person has by counting the amounts. Then the amounts are compared to find the difference. We will also find how much change a person will get after spending a certain amount. This gives us a chance to review standard usbtraction (now with zeroes) or using other strategies such as counting up.

Example: Sammy has $5.00 and he spends $1.95 for a ball and  $2.50 for a pack of cards. How much does he have left? Or how much more do the cards cost? Or I may show the coins and students have to count them to get the amounts.

                                        anchor chart >>>>



We are so grateful to have Mrs. Van Dyk an amazing volunteer who comes twice a week to help some students especially with reading and math. She is Erik's grandmother and she is a retired teacher. One of the programs she helps with is readinga-z.com. The online books are at levels for different abilities. Anyone can obtain a subscription. The books are also in French!

It is SO important for students to read frequently at home in addition to what we do at school. Talk to your child about what they are reading. What happened in this chapter? What do you think will happen next? Why do you think the author wrote this text? Ask students to give an opinion about the story or information and ask them to prove or justify their point of view.

Our posters on structures were magnificent! Students gathered very interesting structures and put their posters together by themselves. They had to describe features of their structures that made them stable or unique. Students also learned how to place their pictures and use the space well to display their work. We used what we knew in Science to do a very sharp art activity! Students drew a cityscape learning how to make buildings behind other buildings. They used pastels and thin water paint. The junior teachers were admiring these marvelous paintings!