Weekly Update: February 21 - February 24

Announcements:​​

• Economics Fair Products:  All student products have been approved. Now is the time to get making those 50+ products!  I would recommend that your child makes a few each night, so that all the products are ready to come to school on March 7 or March 8.  With only 11 days left until the Economics Fair, your child should be busy working on their products!!
• Field Trip to The Thinkery:​ We are going to The Thinkery on Tuesday, March 21. We currently have our 5 parent volunteer chaperones (Parth B's mom, Rishaan's dad, Vaishali's mom, Anirudh's mom and Leo's mom). If any of these parents are unable to get their volunteer "approval" completed by the end of next week, I'll reach out to the few other parents that have expressed interest in going. I'll message those parents individually if needed. Due to space at The Thinkery, we've been asked to keep our number of volunteers to no more than 5. 
• Volunteering at Elsa England:  To be allowed to volunteer at any school in RRISD, parents must be an "approved" volunteer. This application must be completed each year. Here is the volunteer application. Please complete it so you have the ability to volunteer for Field Day, End-of-Year Party, etc. 
• Become a PTA Member: Our school needs parents like you to sign up for PTA. Critical learning tools, field trips, and resources are paid for by our wonderful PTA, but that means we need you!  Please, become a PTA member today. England PTA website
• Home Access Center: Please, check weekly to stay up to date on your child's academic progress. Link to Home Access Center.  Continue to discuss with your child the importance of listening to directions, staying focused on school work and doing his/her personal best on all assignments. Remember, if a student earns below a 70% on any assignment or test, the student can make corrections to earn a possible passing grade (70%) per school district policy. 

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​Upcoming Events:​​​​.​ ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ ​​

• Mar 1 - Field Trip chaperones are in place and approved by the district. 
• Mar 7 or Mar 8 - Bring in Economics Fair products
• Mar 7 - Science Unit Test: Natural Resources 
• Mar 8 - Economics Fair (students only - this is not open to parents)
• Mar 9 - Cultural Heritage Night at Elsa England (5:30 - 8:00pm)
  
• Mar  10 - PreK Buddies Activity 

**STAAR Testing Day (real one) - April 18 (Reading) and May 2 (Math)

What are we learning?  
Writing: We will be wrapping up our first Informational (nonfiction) writing piece next week. So far  we have written the introduction, 3 or more chapters, closing, table of contents and glossary. We'll revise, edit and type up our final drafts next week. Then, we'll begin our research project (Project Based Learning Project) on ways we can help conserve our natural resources and protect our environment. 

Reading:  Our next unit is: Project Based Learning.  Students will be able to:

• 3.6B generate questions to deepen understanding and gain information
• 3.6C make, correct, or confirm predictions using text features, characteristics of genre, and structures
• 3.6D create mental images to deepen understanding
• 3.6E make connections to personal experiences, ideas in other texts, and society
• 3.6F make inferences and use evidence to support understanding
• 3.6G evaluate details read to determine key ideas
• 3.6H synthesize information to create new understanding
• 3.6I monitor comprehension and make adjustments such as re-reading, using background knowledge, asking questions, and annotating when understanding breaks down
• 3.7 The student responds to an increasingly challenging variety of sources that are read, heard, or viewed.
• 3.7C use text evidence to support an appropriate response
• 3.7D retell and paraphrase texts in ways that maintain meaning and logical order
• 3.7E interact with sources in meaningful ways such as notetaking, annotating, freewriting, or illustrating
• 3.7F respond using newly acquired vocabulary as appropriate
• 3.7G discuss specific ideas in the text that are important to the meaning
• 3.9D recognize characteristics and structures of informational text, including: the central idea with supporting evidence, nonfiction text features, cause/effect and problem/solution patterns in a text. 
• 3.9E recognize characteristics and structures of argumentative text by: identifying the claim, distinguishing facts from opinion, identifying the intended audience or the reader
• 3.9F recognize characteristics of multimodal and digital texts

Math: 

• ​Swyers and Lilleboe Students: We are currently in our Measurement unit. Focus TEKS are:​ 
  • 2.9G Read and write time to the nearest one-minute increment using analog and digital clocks
  • 3.7C determine the solutions to problems involving addition and subtraction of time intervals in minutes using pictorial models or tools such as a 15-minute event plus a 30-minute event equals 45 minutes
  • 3.7E determine liquid volume (capacity) or weight using appropriate units and tools.
  • 3.7D determine when it is appropriate to use measurements of liquid volume (capacity) or weight
  • 3.7A represent fractions of halves, fourths, and eighths as distances from zero on a number line
  • 3.4G use strategies and algorithms, including the standard algorithm, to multiply a two-digit number by a one-digit number. Strategies may include mental math, partial products, and the commutative, associative, and distributive properties
• Bae/Jones/McKenzie students: Math unit - Financial Literacy. Students will be able to:​
  • Students will develop strategies for accurately counting a collection of bills and coins.
  • ​​Students will understand the connection between human capital/labor and income.
  • Students will understand the concept of scarcity and its impact on cost.
  • Students will understand the costs and benefits of spending decisions, planned and unplanned.
  • Students will understand what credit it is, how it works, and why people may use credit.
  • Students will understand the benefits of saving money.
  • Students will understand decisions individuals make around money - income, spending, saving, credit, and charitable giving.

Science: We have started our next unit "Natural Resources". Students will be able to: 

• 3.7C- explore the characteristics of natural resources that make them useful in products and materials such as clothing and furniture and how resources may be conserved
• 3.11A- explore and explain how humans use natural resources such as in construction, agriculture, transportation, and to make products
• 3.11B- identify ways to conserve natural resources through reducing, reusing, or recycling.

Social Studies: The economics (financial literacy) unit will stretch into March as we prepare for our Economics Fair on March 8th.