Purse Pages

January 13, 2017

Edition 8

Happy New Year

Dear Parents,
Happy New Year and
welcome back! I
hope you all had a
relaxing break and
had an opportunity to
spend time with
friends and family.
I hope you have
heard some chatter
about iRead at home.
Our iRead for the
112 Foundation has

begun and our class

goal is to be the top
readers in the
school as well as help
to bring the trophy Please encourage
back to Ravinia! We your child this
need all students to month to read as
participate, which
much as they can
shouldnt be hard
and remind them of
because they are
our goal. This is one
reading at home
of my favorite
every night anyway. fundraisers!
We had a little fun,
did some extra math
and came up with a
class goal to beat!

Whats Happening in the Classroom?

ELA
During ELA students
continued work on
our Heroism theme.
We read a historical
fiction piece called
When the Circus
Came to Town.
We grappled with
three essential
questions: Can
someone be a hero in
only one persons
eyes? Who is a hero
and who/what
decides? What makes
an act heroic?
We spent time
discussing theme and
how to identify the
theme of a story
We are continuing to
work on answering
text dependent
questions and

support our answers

with evidence from
the text.
We revisited our
nonfiction selection,
Amelia Lost, The Life
and Disappearance of
Amelia Earhart.
We are beginning to
learn about how
Amelia became
interested in planes
and started flying.
Students are
beginning to see how
a person is made up
of many different
parts and trying to
decide whether
Amelia has heroic
qualities.
Writing
In writing, we have
had two focuses.
The students have

tied in some of their

reading to writing
opinion pieces. They
have been exposed
to several text
selections and had to
give their opinions
with evidence and
examples as to
whether the
character in a
particular story was
heroic or not.
Their major writing
focus has been on
informative writing.
They have
researched
Westward expansion
and are writing their
own information
books on the topic.

Page 2 of 3

Continued
Social Studies
This week the students
began their research
on explorers. Each
group was assigned 2
of the 8 explorers we
are researching where
they would become the
expert. Every
partnership will create
a Google presentation
and share their
learning with a larger
group. By the end
they will all have
knowledge on all 8
explorers.
Science
We began our Earth
and Sun unit with
observing the moon for
a week. The students
are learning about
Earth and its

relationship to the
moon and sun. We
have been looking at
how the moon changes
and been focused on
what we see in the
night sky vs. day sky
and why.
Math
In math, we are
continuing to work on a
variety of concepts.
We are working
through our Numbers
and Operations unit.
The students are
getting much more
comfortable working
with decimals. We
have compared them,
rounded them, looked
at the value of each

place and written them

in multiple forms.
These skills are very
useful as they relate
to money. We have
been able to apply the
concepts to real world
situations in small
group work and on
some complex tasks.

IMPORTANT DATES TO REMEMBER

Saturday 1/7
IREAD began
Friday 1/13
Early Release
Monday 1/16
No School

Questions to Ask Your Child

.

1.
2.
Phone:
(224)-765-3674

3.

E-Mail:
rpurse@nssd112.org

4.
5.
6.

7.

8.

9.

What did you do in art, gym, music, and

tree house this week?
What is Caesars English? What are Latin
Stems?
What are some books you read during ELA
and then had to decide whether the
characters were heroes or not?
Ms. Purse and Ms. Graham have had you
write an OREO. What does that mean?
What are some interesting things youve
learned about Amelia Earhart?
Ms. Purse is teaching you about information
writing. What does she mean when she says
grow your ideas? Or when she says write
long and strong?
I heard you read a story called When the
Circus Came to Town, what was the theme
of the story?
How many minutes does the class think they
can read as a whole for iRead? What will
Ms. Purse do if we reach our goal?
What did you do with post-it notes on
Thursday and Friday before your MJS?