Welcome back ~
I hope that everyone had a wonderful fall break!

Language Arts - Today we are back to reading from our purple reader! Our story of the week is Rattlers. It is a nonfiction story about rattlesnakes. Our comprehension skill is identifying the main idea and details of paragraphs. The organization of the story is very helpful because each main idea is in the form of a question and is the heading for each section.

Our vocabulary words: species, survive, alert, vibrations, surroundings, prey, predators, and lunging. Our grammar skill is singular and plural nouns.

Here is our Rit Vocabulary and examples:
Appositives - When you are renaming someone or something. This information is often not needed. You put commas around the appositive. For example: My dog, Sadie is at the groomers. Sadie is the appositive.
Bias - A preconceived opinion about something. It is also the point of view you take in your writing. For example: Many students wrote a persuasive paper last week about drugs. Their bias was that drugs are bad.
Epiphany - A sudden moment of understanding that causes a character to change or act in a certain way. For example: After everyone sat with other people at lunch, Fred had an epiphany and decided to be nicer to his friends.
Gerund - It is a verb that functions like a noun. For example: Running is a Mr. L's favorite hobby. Running is a gerund.
Italics - A type of letter that is slightly slanted, usually used for titles and to emphasize special words. For example: We will have a test next Friday. Next is in italics to differentiate from this Friday.
Our writing focus of the week is persuasive letters. Each student is to write a letter to the editor. They need to back up their opinions with facts and may need to do a little research at home. This is due on Friday.
Weekly Homework was assigned and is due Friday.
Check out the spellingcity.com website. It's a fun and easy way to practice spelling words. Just type in your list under the "batch entry" tool and you can learn, test and play games all about your spelling words.

Math: We continued to practice using the percent circle to measure sectors of a circle graph. Homework - Journal pages 157 and 158, SL 5.9 and 5.10

Social Studies - We completed the chart that will be used as part of a study guide for the Unit 3 test coming up soon (Early next week). Look for the second part of the study guide to come home soon. No homework.