September 24-28

Writing:
We are still working on our personal narratives this week. This week, it is all about adding more details to your stories. Students will practice stretching out action scenes, adding speech bubbles to pictures, adding dialogue to the written story, and showing how a character feels, not telling. Students will have writing time each day to practice these skills and time to share what they have been working on at the end.

Reading:
We are stepping away from fiction to focus on nonfiction texts and good citizenship. Students will read about what it means to be a good citizen and point out some good citizens in our community. They will also read short biographies and will be challenged to write down some important facts they learned. We will learn about some important historical figures, such as Paul Revere, Abigail Adams, and John Hancock. Toward the end of the week, we will go over a few important US symbols.

Homework this week will be to complete some good citizenship secret missions! A note will go home in your child's Tuesday folder with some options to complete their secret missions. Take a picture of your child completing one of the secret missions and email it to me. At the end of the week, we will share how we helped make our community a better place!

Math:
We are still focusing on place value this week. Last week, students really got the hang of building numbers using base-ten blocks. This week we are taking it a step further by comparing numbers using the greater than/ less than symbols and adding one, ten, or a hundred to any number. We will have a whole group lesson then students will split into math groups for more practice on these skills and previously learned skills.

Science:
Students have been loving our study of matter and its properties. This week we are still focusing on physical changes and how combining materials can make them do things they can't do on their own. Students will have the opportunity this week to build a tower out of spaghetti or pipe cleaners. They goal is to make a free standing, sturdy structure that support a cotton ball on top. It's going to be fun! Later in the week, we will look at magnetism and how we can use magnets in everyday life.

Question of the week: If blood is red, why do our veins look blue?
This is optional but your child can research the answer, write it down and bring it to school. I'll give them 2 Dojo points!

Reminders:
Library Day: Friday- send in books
Caraway 40th Anniversary Party: September 29th

Caraway's 2018 Bike Rodeo, which only happens every other year, is scheduled for Saturday, October 6th, from 10am-12pm at the Caraway's parking lot (flagpole / Carlwood Drive side). There will be a raffle for a FREE bike from Empire BMX, FREE helmets to the first 50 students, helmet fitting and bike tune-up stations, and a bike course set-up to learn how to ride safely.  Watch a BMX bike stunt show and grab some food from Rosarito's Taco truck. We need parent volunteers to make this event happen, so please sign up here: https://goo.gl/XQprac. Hope to see you there!