Hi families,

What a crazy week with this weather! We have used the little time that we have had this week to gather notes for our research topics and begin to organize them. Most students have gathered at least 4 notecards per sub-topic that they are researching, using books and trusted websites (see previous post about trusted websites). Due to our limited time this week, I have given students an extension until Monday if they have not finished their notecards to continue their research over the weekend.

In reading, our original deadline for the books they are reading in small groups was this past Thursday (February 19) but due to the weather I gave students an extension until Monday. Please encourage your child to finish his/her books and thinkmarks and research over the weekend. Like I told them, when we lose time we all have a bit of extra work to do to make up for it, even though the weather is out of our hands.

This coming week, students will be creating Popplets to organize their notecards. Their Popplets will serve as their planning web for their research papers. We will begin drafting our papers on Wednesday of this coming week.

In word study, we are studying prefixes this week and next week. Students are also learning the words immaculate, vigorous, and tamper. Please talk to your child about these words! Students also added their own new words from their reading to their personalized word study lists. I encourage you to talk to your child about the new words he/she is learning in reading!

Hope you all have a great weekend!