Classroom Update - Week of November 5th

Updates/Reminders​ ​

• This is a reminder that tomorrow November 6th (Election Day) has been changed to a 2 hour delay. Buses will run on a 2-hour delay. Doors for students will open at 10:45 and the instructional day will begin at 11:15. We will have a modified lunch schedule and students will eat in the classrooms due to MES being an election site.Club Unified is currently leading a school supply drive for

• Maysville Elementary in Jones County that was affected by Hurricane Florence. They are collecting supplies that will be sent down to the school. There are boxes throughout that school where the supplies can be delivered and collections will be going on until this Friday, November 2nd. Please help us work together to help out another MES school!

• Morrisville Elementary will host a Food Drive to assist Wake Relief of Raleigh in providing food for those in need. The Food Drive will begin the week of November 5th and continue through December 5th. Wake Relief will welcome any non-perishables.

• Thursday, November 8th is our first field trip to the North Carolina Legislative Building and History Museum. We will be leaving school at 9:30 sharp and returning back to school in time for lunch at 1:15. If you are interested in chaperoning, please send me an email. Also, this field trip costs $5.00. Please use THIS LINK to pay for the field trip before Thursday, or you may send in a check made payable to Morrisville Elementary School.

• Fall Picture/Yearbook retakes for track 4 will be Friday, November 9th. If you would like your child to get their picture retaken, please send me an email letting me know.

E.L. Education:

This week, the students will continue to learn more about animal behaviors and defenses through a variety of nonfiction texts. A heavy emphasis will continue to be placed on finding the main idea and supporting details and then using that to write a complete summary. The students will also refine their speaking and listening skills by having a science discussion regarding the animal defense mechanisms that we have studied thus far. Finally, they will end the week by choosing the animal that they would like to research for their informational essay in unit two.

This week, you will notice that EL homework has been moved to an online format with Google Classroom. Your child will be responsible for checking our Google Classroom nightly for their assignment. They should expect to find an online ReadWorks passage, reading for 20 minutes, and some sort of writing paragraph prompt. If your child is having a difficult time accessing the internet for this homework, please let me know as soon as possible, so we can create a plan to ensure that it still gets accomplished.

How to Help Your Child at Home:

• Take your child to the library to check out or learn more about defense mechanisms that animals use to help them survive.

• Have them identify the main idea and supporting details of nonfiction paragraphs or text sections, then have them write a summary of what they have read.

• Have your child orally paraphrase what they just read in a nonfiction text.

• Point out tricky words, while reading and discuss strategies that your child used (or could use) to determine the meaning.

• Have your child share with you more about the animal that they have chosen to research.

Math:

This week in math the students will be ending their multiplication unit on multi-digit multiplication on Tuesday. For the remainder of the week, the students will start long division. They will begin by using place value pieces to model what is happening when we divide then they will learn the area/rectangle algorithm for long division. I will be sharing and posting video models to my classroom website to give you models of how to divide using these new methods.

How to Help Your Child at Home: ​

• Does your child know their multiplication facts? If not, they should be practicing them each night to improve their math accuracy and fluency. There are great sites like multiplication.com or arcademicskillbuilders.com that have fun games and strategies that your child can use at home. There are also many other fun apps and sites that your child can visit, in addition to flash cards.

• Watch the video lessons on my website or look back through your child's student notes together. Have them show you some of the new ways that they are learning to multiply or divide numbers.

Social Studies:

This week in social studies the students will be comparing and contrasting the similarities and differences between federal, state, and local governments. They will be reading several texts off of Big Universe this week and then taking notes to reflect their understanding of the topic. They will end the week by learning the process that bills go through to become a law.

How to Help Your Child at Home: ​

• Take your child with you to vote and help them understand some of the ways that you research the candidates you choose to vote for and explain why voting is important to you.

• Discuss with your child the similarities and differences between federal, state, and local governments. Discuss with your child the similarities and differences between federal, state, and local govern

• Talk your your child about the people who represent their districts in federal, state, and local governments.

• Have your child share their social studies notebook with you to share some of the concepts that they have learned.