Week of Nov. 27th

 Spelling Focus- Sept to November

During the last few months, we have been learning how to find the syllable break in a word and gaining an understanding that each syllable must have at least one vowel. We have also explored long vowel combinations: ai, ay, a_e, eigh, ight, ie, y. This week, we focused on the letter "Gg" and how to create a soft g sound using the letters e, i, and y. Another strategy we have been learning is using rhyme knowledge to support us (When we know how to spell a word that sounds similar, we can often use this knowledge to help us spell a new word, i.e. light, bright, night). 

Over the next few weeks, we will focus on letter combinations that make the long u,o, and e sounds and how to create a soft "c." Below is a list of the sight words we have been practicing. Many words don't follow the rules and can only be mastered through memorization. Please continue to support your child in learning them so they can be spelled without hesitation while writing. 

was, were, then, said, what, are, when, had, some, from, for, with, you, about, each, have, but, that, your, who, this, she, them, have, by, as, other, word, not, all, or, use, if, how, many, there, their, these, so, will, make, like, into, time, two, more, number, look, her, been, come, than, way, out, people. made, could, part, come, has, day, long, find, call, first, eight, place, away, paper, name, take, always, page, late, along, right, life, little, kind, try, eye, idea, night, high, light

If you care to look ahead at the rest of the high-frequency words we will be focusing on, as stated by Alberta Education, I have posted them in your child's Google classroom. 

In addition to our spelling goals, our focus while writing has also included using proper upper and lower case letters. We have learned that no upper case letters should be present in the middle of a word, and the letter "I" should always be capitalized when referring to ourselves. To support sentence structure, we have learned that a sentence is a group of words giving a complete thought that contains a  subject and  and a verb (although one may be implied). For example:

• The cat sat on the mat.
• (Here, the subject is "the cat" and the verb is "sat." The words convey a complete thought. This is a sentence.)

Our sentence must always start with an upper case letter and end with a period, question mark, or exclamation mark. 

In math, we started our geometry unit by identifying polygons, shapes that are not polygons, and sides and vertices. We counted the sides and vertices of shapes and learned the names of polygons according to the number of sides they had. This week, we will continue to explore polygons by learning how to sort and classify them using a Venn Diagram. 

To help continue to support our ability to develop our mental math skills, the students learned how to play Race to a hundred and back. This is a great way to continue to practice addition and subtraction. Please visit our Google Classroom to find a copy of this game.