Election Day!

Today the students and I went over what is an election and what is the job of the president. We did not get into political views of each candidate and we did not express our voting preference on candidates. 

Instead we made it a little more kid friendly...

During power hour students had their own Scholastic that is coming home today. They did a large majority of it and figured the rest could be save for tomorrow, election day. The Scholastic News, Can a Kid Be President?, is in Google Classroom and they have a hard copy with them. It teaches the kids why kids can't be president and what they would do if they were president. Great magazine!

After learning about the process we read a story, Duck for President. While reading we decided who we would want for president, based on the book and the information we had. Duck or Farmer Brown? Then students voted! We had ballots and a ballot box. Then we graphed our results and filled in the bar graph. They had a lot of fun with it while it came with cheering and many more questions. Their curiosity is coming home to you :)

Happy Halloween!

 Hope everyone had a Happy Halloween!
Just as we hoped we finished our academics Monday through Thursday. That was BUSY! 
Friday we had a BLAST getting into the spirit of Halloween! Since we could not do parties and costumes, we instead had a FULL day of Poke a Pumpkin! 

Each student had their own cup filled with an activity for the whole class to do. Yes...25 activities! We built witches hats, haunted houses, and broom sticks. Stamped spiders, drew chalk pumpkin patches, showed our athletic abilities and dance moves, heard stories, shared our costumes, enjoyed a tasty treat (after being quarantined for days) and much more. By 2:00 we were ready to relax and watch The One and Only Ivan!

I went home from a crazy fun day totally exhausted. Hope your child had just as much fun!

Science: Floating M's

 The letters on the M&M candy do not dissolve in water and are adhered to the candy with edible paper. Since the letters are less dense than water, the letters peel off and float as the rest of the candy shell dissolves. The colored dyes of the candies will color the water.
We did it! It works!

Have your child re-create this at home!

Happy Birthday Mickle!

Halloween Friday

Friday, October 30th

In the event that we get through all our academics, Monday through Thursday, Friday will give students a fun and fabulous opportunity to get in the Halloween spirit!

Students are encouraged to dress festive for that day, just no costumes please.

Morning
Fun filled Halloween activities pack our day up until lunch/recess! Thank you for all the toilet paper rolls & yarn you have sent in! We should be all set! THANK YOU!

Afternoon
We will be wrapping up our read aloud/book study The One and Only Ivan. We will be watching the movie that afternoon as another Halloween celebration. If you would like your child NOT to watch this movie please let me know as soon as possible.
*Students are welcom0e to bring in a small, special, individual snack for the movie!*

Any further questions please let me know!

New Badge!

 Our class has read 100 more books on Epic and earned a new badge!

Keep up the good work of reading!

Spooktacular Move A Thon

Wednesday, October 28th @ 10:45
Westwoods Annual Move-A-Thon event

This year, we’ll be shaking things up! Students will be challenged to work together as a team to complete a “spooktacular” scavenger hunt through the woods!

This is our biggest fundraiser of the year. We’re asking for your student’s participation raising funds for strong minds and strong bodies! 

Donations can be made via cash, check (payable to Westwoods PTO). We are encouraging families to also use the PTO PayPal account if possible.
Here is the link PTO Paypal Account.

Prizes will be awarded to the grade level with the most donations and best demonstrated teamwork!

Storyworks

One of our new resources this year is Storyworks! We are super excited to include this into our weekly routine. There are so many engaging articles throughout, giving students many opportunities to use their critical thinking skills while also exercising their reading skills. 
These will come home at the end of next week. Students can also see this online at home if they want in Google Classroom - LA. They will know where to go :) 

Spooktacular Move A Thon!

 

Journeys Unit 2 Lesson 6

 Hello Unit 2!!
In our new unit, students are going to be pushing their thinking and using new skills and strategies to grow as readers, writers, and even speakers.

We have two new anchor texts this week.

Animals Building Homes

Whose Home Is This?

Genre: Informational Text

Some key objectives derived from this text will be identifying text and graphic features and using content to determine meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary. They will also be comparing and contrasting animals and their homes in both selections and using text features as subheadings in bold print to clarify the meaning.