9/19/24

 Burg's Buzz
9/19/24
nburg@crestonstmalachy.org

Science

The class reviewed understanding friction and gravity. Students also experimented and learned about magnetism.

Reading/Language Arts

This week the class read the fantasy story Scary Squirrel by Melanie Watt. In this story, Squirrel is afraid to leave the tree she lives in due to being afraid of the unknown. The reader finds out what happens when Squirrel decides to leave her home and venture out.  The comprehension skills covered making inferences, point of view, text and graphic features, and theme. Students worked on identifying and writing compound sentences. The decoding skill focused on the long a and long e sounds. The vocabulary skill included using the suffixes of -ful and -ness.

I have talked with the students about their writing of their missed words on the pretest. Students should be using a pencil, writing on the lines, and using their best handwriting. Some of the work that has been turned in has been done in pen, not using the lines of the paper, and illegible handwriting. Also, I have talked with the students about studying the words for the post test. I understand missing a word or two, but missing as many as one did on the pretest shouldn't be happening on the post test.

Math

The class worked on learning the factors of 2, 5, and 9  this week. Please work with your child on these at home. Skip counting, repeated addition,  making arrays, and using flashcards can help. In your child's take home folder is a packet that shows the multiples of each number for practicing at home. There are many online resources such as games and songs that can be utilized as well. Spending five minutes on the drive to school or before bed can be really beneficial for the students.

There is a special trick for the nines. The sum of the digits adds up to nine. In a problem like 4 X 9 =?, the tens digit of the answer is one less than the factor other than 9. So, one less than 4 is 3. For the ones digit, add 3 + ____=9, so it would be 6. The answer to 4 X 9=36. There is also the finger method. I am attaching a video that demonstrates this strategy. 

Fingers Trick for the factor of 9  

                                 Important Dates

Friday, September 20th-Spirit Day $1

Friday, October 4th-Spirit Day $1 (Wear Panther Gear)

Friday, October 4th-3 Hour Early Dismissal (Homecoming)