Best of Heights!

Thank you to all of you who attended our special "Best of Heights Night".  It is so nice to see so many of you come out and support your children.  The students were so excited to share their work.

In case you missed it, here are some photos of the classroom.

This week we read about several different heroes.  We read about a woman named Dianna Golden who lost one leg as a child and went on to become a champion skier.  We also read about a boy named Rudy Garcia-Tolson.  He lost both of his legs as a young child due to some birth defects and he became a triathlete and a champion swimmer winning several medals in the Paralympic Games. 

Check out this link to hear about him:  Meet Rudy

We continued to learn more about the rainforest including the four layers and which animals live in each layer.  We even played a game to help us learn about the animals.

In writing, we wrote fun stories about aliens.  What would you do if an alien came knocking on your door?  

The countdown is on for the end of the year!!

How Do People Get Along?

Our essential question this week was "How do people get along?"  We read a story about two girls that played soccer and how they worked together to win a game.  We practiced summarizing stories and telling the point of view of the characters.

We finished our unit on time and money this week with an assessment.  These will be coming home for you to review and sign.  Our next unit that we will be starting next week is geometry.  We will be starting by identifying 2-dimensional shapes.

In writing this week, we practiced our opinion writing by writing book reviews.  We started the week by reading one of my favorite childhood books, Juilus.  We wrote a review of the book together.  Then the students each chose a book and wrote a review on it.

In science we looked at pictures of the rainforest and learned about the four layers. In social studies, we finished up our unit on the changes that occurred in San Francisco.

The class earned a compliment party.  They received 15 compliments from other staff members at school. To celebrate this achievement, today we watched "The Tale of Despereaux."  

Enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend!!

The Best Part of Me

We finished up our poetry unit for writing this week by publishing our poems in the computer lab.  Then we mounted our "The Best Part of Me" poems.  The students were asked what their favorite body part was.  Then they wrote a peom about it.

In reading this week, our essential question was "What do good citizens do?"  One of our stories this week focused on Martin Luther King, Jr.  We were very familiar with Martin and what makes him a good citizen.  This story was about how Martin knew even as a young boy that there were some injustices in our country.  He learned about fairness and being peaceful from his father who was a minister.

We continued to practice counting money and this week began adding money.  We focused on lining up the money problems correctly.  Several of the students had some difficulty with figuring out the word problems and when to add or subtract.  We will continue to practice this skill.

We kicked off our Rainforest unit this week by reading The Great Kapok Tree.  We discussed the book and how the animals in the book did not want the man to cut down the tree.  In the coming weeks we will be learning more about the rainforest including the four layers and all about the animals that live there.

The class has earned a compliment party by receiving 15 compliments from other staff members and we have almost finished reading The Tale of Despereaux.    Therefore, as a reward we will be watching the movie soon.  Good job class!!

Have a great weekend.  Hope to see you at Opening day for baseball!!

Happy Easter!

Can you believe it is spring break time already?  In preparation for the holiday, we made cute baskets in the hopes of receiving some treats in them.  We also dyed easter eggs for fun!!

In reading this week, we discussed the elements of a folktale.  We read four different versions of "The Three Little Pigs".  We compared and contrasted the different versions of the story.

We continued our unit on poetry in writing.  We started the week by learning about Haiku poetry.  Then we worked on poems about our favorite part of our bodies and some fun poems using sound words.

We finished up our unit on solids, liquids and gases with an assessment.  In social studies we started discussing the city of San Francisco.  In the 1800's, San Francisco was a rural area and now it has become urban.  We will be learning about a tragedy that happened that changed the area and how the community came together to rebuild it.  

Enjoy your family time together on break!!