History & Geography

Examining South American artifacts

This week we continued our study of geography of the Americas. We learned about the West Indies, South America, and the lands of the Andes. The class worked in small groups to make travel posters of the areas that we’ve learned about so far.

Our objectives
• understand how the West Indies were named
• describe physical and cultural a aspect of Puerto Rico
• locate the continent of South America
• describe important features of Brazil, Columbia, Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana, and French Guiana
• recognize geographical features of Peru, Ecuador, and Bolivia
• describe the lifestyles of people’s of the central Andes

Science

This week in we continued our science domain, Cycles in Nature. The class learned more about cycles and the reasons for seasons. We learned the poems “Bed in Summer” by Robert Lewis Stevenson and”Bee I’m Expecting You” by Emily Dickinson

Our objectives were to:
• explain that a cycle is a sequence of events that repeats itself again and again
• recognize that the rotation of Earth causes daytime and nighttime
• recognize that living things have a life cycle
• explain that it takes 24 hours for Earth to rotate once on its axis and one year for earth to orbit the Sun

Earth revolves and rotates around the sun.

• explain effects of seasonal changes on plants and animals

Spelling and Writing

In our journals we used the idiom of the week, ” They’re in hot water”.  We reviewed the word wall words that we have learned so far and the expectation for spelling them correctly in our writing. We began our spelling sorts this week and we had a practice test on Friday.

Las matemáticas

Our weekly objectives were to:

  • use base-ten blocks and a place-value chart to read, write, and represent numbers to 1,000
  • read and write numbers to 1,000 in standard form, expanded form, and word form
  • count on by 1s, 10s, and 100s to 1,000
  • use base-ten blocks to recognize, read, and write numbers to 1,000
  • use base-ten blocks, greater than, less than, > and < to compare numbers

La lectura

This week we read Ant y los tres higuitos. Our weekly objectives were:

  • use the comprehension strategies Making Connections and Visualizing when reading our story the first time
  • use the comprehension skill Author’s Purpose when reading our story the second time
  • learn and practice using common and proper nouns
  • understand the meaning of our high frequency words for the week and practice spelling them
  • practice reading at home and in class our first readers!