HAWARDEN ELEMENTARY NEWSLETTER

Grades 2-5

        Wednesday, May 21 - Last day of School (1 hour early dismissal)

  2^ndGrade News

Both 2^ndgrade classes look forward to our upcoming field trip to the zoo on Wednesday, May 14. The day will be a fun-filled learning experience for the students to enjoy. Just a reminder that your child needs to bring $3 for the trip. Please have your child bring the money by May 7. Both classes will begin studying animal habitats and learn about how different animals live and eat. This will help the children see why the animals live how they do at the zoo.

Friday, May 9 is Grandparents Day! We welcome any grandparents our special friends that would like to join our classroom from 10:00 to 11:00 that morning. If any grandparents plan to attend the classroom time or lunch that day, please RSVP Norma in the office.

As your child counts down these last few weeks until school is out, we encourage you to keep working with them on spelling and math facts. Make practicing spelling words a game or puzzle, have your child cut out letters from newspapers or magazines to spell the words, practice magic writing with a finger in the air. All of these ways make it seem a little more fun to learn those spelling words!

3rd Grade News

Spelling- We will not have regular spelling the next few weeks of school.  We will, however, have a spelling list and test that list.  What we plan to do is start on Monday with a pretest over the months of the year and the days of the week.  The students will study that list and we will test over these words first on Wednesday, April 28th.  If your child passes that test missing zero they are done with spelling for this year in third grade.  If they do not get all the words correct they will be tested again on Friday.  We will continue testing the students every Mon., Wed., and Friday until they have a perfect test.  If you help them study early they will be finished early.  We feel the days of the week and the months are important words the students need to spell.

Math-  We are working with division.  We will also take some spelling time and do some extra math.  This will include Geometry, Measurement, Fractions, and reading a thermometer.

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Science-  Plant and Animal Life Cycle test- Tuesday, April 29th  (Please help your child study Monday evening.)

Social Studies- Chapter 8 test -Wednesday, April 30th  (Please help your child study Tuesday evening.)

Health-   On Monday, May 5th we will begin Chapter 7 Avoiding Alcohol and Tobacco.  We will discuss this unit and not test over it.

Map Skills - Both classes will complete their map skills booklets.

English- We will work on adverbs and complete our English unit.

Grandparents Day-  Please remind Grandparents that the visitation time in 3rd grade is on Friday, May 9th.  We invite you to come from 10:00 to 11:00 and our lunch is from 11:05 to 11:25.  Make sure Grandparents register in the office ahead of time.

Mr. Vonk's last day of school with us will be Friday, May 9th.  We wish him well and thank him for his hard work here at West Sioux.

4th Grade News

Reading:  Our next two selections will be The Fox and the Guinea Pig and Mom's Best Friend.

English:  Mrs. Lawton's class will be finishing up desert presentations the beginning of next week.  Then they will be starting a unit on Capitalization and Punctuation.  Mrs. Brown's class is finishing their research and will begin outlines of their desert plant and animal next week.  Desert Dioramas are due May 5 for Mrs. Brown's class.  Students should be working on their dioramas at home.

Social Studies:  Students are continuing their study of the Pacific West.  We will be focusing on the history of this region.

Math:  Fourth graders have been working hard on dividing two and three digit numbers.  We will now begin working on division using two digit divisors.

Science:  Students will begin a unit on Using Food: Digestion.

Reminder:  Be sure your child turns in their Agricultural Safety Day permission slip as soon as possible.

Reading Rodeo:  Many students have to finish their April Reading Rodeo books and projects before April 30.

Special thanks to our chaperones who helped with our Circus/Museum trip on Thursday, April 17.  We really appreciated your help and support!!

5th Grade News

Science:  We are studying the effects of alcohol on our bodies.  Students learned about blood alcohol level and were given a chance to wear the "Fatal Vision Glasses".  It demonstrated how quickly impairment can turn fun into devastating consequences for anyone who drives while impaired by alcohol.  We will also learn about alcohol abuse.  

Math: We are in our Fractions Unit.  We will focus on understanding fractions and mixed numbers and relating them to decimals.  Skills include estimating fraction amounts, finding equivalent fractions, and comparing fractions.

Reading:  Mrs. Weerheim’s group has started our new book, Call It Courage.  It is a legend of a Polynesian boy, Mafatu, living on an island who is afraid of the sea. The setting is the fictional island of Hikueru in the South Pacific Ocean.  Throughout the story, Mafatu overcomes one problem after another and eventually he overcomes his fears.  We will be focusing on the plot, characterization, theme, and story elements.

Social Studies:  Students have been studying about the thirteen original colonies.  We have just completed a mini unit about slavery and have started reading about how the economy affected the lives of the colonists.  We will be testing next week!

English: We have just finished up our adjective unit and are now on to letter writing.  Students will be putting together a writing portfolio that will first showcase their letter writing skills!  Next week we will continue our writing unit by diving into personal narratives.     

Mr. Yost’s Reading: Students have continued their vocabulary study and have utilized their words in class reports and projects.  We just finished up a “quilt” project that helped us with comprehension and the use of prior knowledge.  Ask your student about what “patches” they added to the quilt.

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