Rules, Rules, Rules

This week our essential question in reading was "Why are rules important?"  This led to great discussion this week in class.  We discussed why rules are important in the classroom and in school.  We listened to a story called "Town Rules" about rules in a town. Those rules included leashing your pets, wearing your bike helmet and keeping your public parks clean.  We read about the government and how our country established the Constitution.  In our Government Rules book, we learned about how the government has rules for food, medicine and even fishing.

In math, our focus this week has been on subtraction, subtraction, subtraction.  Earlier in the year, we learn the trade-first algorithmn and this week we have been practicing it again.  When helping at home, please remind your child of our poem "More on top, no need to stop, More on the floor, go next door and get ten more."  This is a great reminder to the students what to do when subtracting.  

We practiced writing letters again this week.  We even wrote letters to Mrs. Taylor's class.  In social studies, we continued to talk about San Francisco.  This week we learned about a devastating earthquake that took place in 1906. We listened to recordings of the earthquake and saw some pictures of the damage that was caused by the earthquake and the fire that followed.  

In science, we began our unit on the rainforest.  We read a book called The Great Kapok Tree.  In this book, a boy was about to chop down one of the trees in the rainforest.  He then takes a nap and all of the animals whisper to him while he is asleep that he should not harm the forest by cutting down a tree.  The animals all have a good reason why and how it would affects them.  In the end, the boy decides not to cut down the tree.  

Next week, we will begin to identify the layers of the rainforest and some of the animals that can be found there.

Today we had a health lesson with Mrs. Visalli about digestion.  It was pretty gross!!!

Have a great weekend.