3M Monthly News

Mrs. Magarino’s Class

February flew by! I can’t believe we are in the month of March already. During the month of February we did get to celebrate Valentine’s Day, talk of our presidents, and celebrate the 100th day of school. We imagined what our life would be like in the future!

Language Arts:

Reading:

  • During Reading Workshop we continued studying the genre of nonfiction. During independent reading time students chose various nonfiction books to read. Their job was to search for important nonfiction features and keep track in a notebook. We learned how these features help us a reader and especially help us get through a nonfiction piece of writing.
  • We also read a few stories that focused on Black History month. Students learned the troubles of the Underground Railroad to the courageousness of Ruby Bridges.

Writing:

  • Students moved on to the Persuasive Essay/Speech writing unit. We have focused on t-charts to gather our ideas. They were taught the differences between a narrative and non-narrative writing piece. They will choose 1 topic (a thesis) to move on with and create a 5 paragraph essay.
  • We completed an essay together as a class. We chose the topic; Students should have longer recess!
  • Each group came up with a reason why we should have longer recess and the details to support the idea. We combined all our ideas to create a 5 paragraph essay. If you ask me- they did a great job!!
  • We shared with Mrs. Drexinger and she did assure us that although it was a great letter to her, we cannot have longer recess (unless you want a longer school day!)
  • Their own essays will be continued in the month of March.

Math:

In Math, students completed the end of unit 6 and most of unit 7 which was all on division. They learned the terms dividend, divisor, and quotient. We can now use addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to solve multi step word problems.

Social Studies:

We continued our social studies unit about America’s Early Communities. After completing our chapter on Native Americans, we’ve moved on to talk about explorers making their way to America in search of a trade route to Asia. We talked about the Pilgrims and the Mayflower and the Spanish blending into the West. This chapter will continue into the month of March.