Weekly Update for May 22nd-26th

Hi Families,

Happy Memorial Day! I hope you all enjoy the weekend.
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What a fun week! Students had a lot of fun visiting Fenway Park in Boston on Thursday. We released our butterflies on Friday –all 22 of them! It was one of those magical, movie-like experiences where the butterflies fly out among the students as they reach out in joy and awe. Check out pictures below. Students also enjoyed watching the Disney/Pixar movie, “A Bug’s Life,” using their background knowledge of insects to understand more of the plot and humor.
We are counting down the days until summer break! 3 more weeks!

​Important Upcoming Dates

• Thursday, June 1st: Field Day! Want to volunteer? Sign up here.

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Community Building
This week we again had to revisit some behavior expectations. We discussed how to be a full body listener and how to stay calm and in control even when excited. Also, we played a couple games of “Silent Ball” during our Morning Meeting activity, and we debriefed each game with discussions on playing within boundaries and learning to accept losing.

Literacy 
We wrapped up our informational unit on Insects this week. Highlights:

• Read aloud informational texts about insects, including: “Friend or Foe? How Humans Affect Insects,” and “Just Like Us: Ants.”
• Learned and practiced new insect vocabulary words, such as “entomologist,” “pollinator,” “extinction,” and “pesticides;”
• Answered literal, inferential, and evaluative questions about each text, such as, “How can humans be foes to insects?” and “How can insects be friends to humans?”

Writing
Highlights:

• Began brainstorming ideas for an opinion piece on how people should respect insects or about a favorite insect;
• Used phrases with “ou”/“ow” words to write a silly story;
• Wrote about our favorite scene in “A Bug’s Life.”

Phonics
We finished unit 14 of Fundations on the sound /ou/, which is spelled with “ow” or “ou.” Highlights:

• Practiced reading and spelling single-syllable and multisyllabic words with “ow” and “ou,”  such as “discounted,” “outgrown,” “rebounded;” and “profound;”
• Learned new trick words and compared their sounds to their unexpected spellings: brought, bought, and piece;
• Took our Unit 14 Phonics test.

For at-home Phonics information and practice:

• Next: Fundations Home Support Packet for Unit 15
• Review:  Fundations Home Support Packet for Unit 14

Math
We reviewed concepts from Unit 6 on Geometry, Time, and Money and finished the unit. Highlights:

• Took our Section D Checkpoint on Money, including solving multi-step word problems involving money;
• Reviewed shapes, fractions, and telling time;
• Took the End-of-Unit Assessment and reviewed the answers.
• Began our next unit on Addition and Subtraction Within 1,000.

For at-home Math information and practice:

• Next:  Illustrative Math Family Support Materials for Unit 7
• Review: Illustrative Math Family Support Materials for Unit 6

Science
We continued our unit on Organisms and Their Habitats. Highlights:

• Read a chapter from our book on plant and animal habitats;
• Watched videos on how animals use plants for food, shelter, and places to raise their young;
• Watched Disney/Pixar’s “A Bug’s Life,” and discussed how the movie incorporated mostly-accurate information about insects;
• Completed our observations of the life cycle of a butterfly and released our butterflies into the wild!​

Butterfly release pictures!

Thank you to Nurse Rose for taking pictures of the spectacular butterfly release outside for us!

Fenway Park Field Trip Pictures

More to come!

Check out individual student photos with Wally!

​​Thank you for taking the time to read the entire update! Please reach out with any questions. Have a great long weekend!