News from Mrs. Cavoto's Room February 29-March 4

Important Dates:

Thursday, March 3 - End of Trimester
Friday, March 4  - Institute Day - No School


Math - The students will use right angles and straight angles to determine the measure of the interior angles in pattern blocks. They will use pattern blocks to measure angles of the rotation on a clock and determine the fraction of a complete turn represented by the angle of each rotation. The students will make angles using pattern blocks.  We will also review the definition of a circle and understand and identify the radius, diameter, and circumference of a circle.

Spelling- This week the students will work with words that have the vowel consonant vowel pattern.  They will be responsible for workbook pages 144-146.

Language Arts - The students will continue to read about the Adventures of Edward Tulane.  They will respond to their reading in their journal as they compare and contrast characters actions and relate the actions to the actions and descriptions in a poem they will also read.  They will continue to study the traits of the characters and settings in the story and use evidence to support their answers.

Science- We will begin a new unit on The Human Body.  The students will  understand that cells are the building blocks of the body.  They will learn that a group of the same kind of cells make up tissues, and a group of the same kind of tissues make up organs, and  different organs make up systems.  The students will also understand  how the digestive system works.  

Social Studies - The students will explain how the Great Lakes were formed and how they are connected to the Atlantic Ocean.

News from Mrs. Cavoto's Room Feb. 22 - Feb. 26

Spelling - The students will work with words that have changed the final  y to an  i.  They will be responsible for workbook pages 129-131 in volume 2.


Math- There will be a math test on Wednesday of this week over the skills and concepts in unit 4.  They should study the kinds of problems which they completed in their workbooks in that unit.  They also have a pretest in their folder which they took at the beginning of the unit.  Now that we have learned the skills they should fix any errors on it that they have made.  They can also use this as a study tool.  We will go over it on Monday.


Reading-    We will continue our journey with Edward Tulane.  The students will be responding to questions using text evidence as their support.  They will also continue to work on vocabulary, and they will understand how the context of the passage can help them determine the meanings of words.

English - We will continue to work with adjectives this week.  The students will use the correct order of adjectives  to create phrases about nouns.

Science - A test is planned for Thursday, Feb. 25.    The students should study the key concepts from the lessons, all vocabulary, and all papers in their science folder.

They should know:
The basic needs of all living things and what basic need plants meet by themselves.
The difference between learned behaviors and instincts-also be able to give examples.
Which organism has fossils that show it has changed little over time
What happens during hibernation and migration?
Understand extinction and be able to give examples of plants and animals that are extinct
Understand adaptations and be able to give examples of adaptations and what they are used for.
Understand the life cycle of a tree and be able to label the different stages and explain what happens in each stage.
What information can you get from fossils?
Understand living fossils.

Social Studies - We travel to the Midwest Region this week.  The students will follow a rater to color a map with the states and bodies of water in the region. There will be a Map test on Friday of this week.  The students will be expected to place the states and bodies of water correctly on the map. They can earn extra points for adding correct capitals of the states.

News from Mrs. Cavoto's Room Feb. 16-19

Friday, Feb.  15- No School
Tuesday & Wednesday, Feb. 16-17  - Parent/Teacher conferences
Thursday, Feb. 18 -Spring picture day

Math-This week the students will identify equivalent amounts of time and convert units of time.  The students will use a number line to solve problems with elapsed time. They will also create benchmarks for 1 milliliter  and 1 liter.  They will solve problems in which they convert milliliters to liters.

Spelling - The students will work with words that have prefixes and or suffixes this week.  They will be responsible for workbook pages 109-111.

Reading-In reading this week we will begin reading the Marvelous Adventures of  Edward Tulane. The vocabulary in the text is very rich and interesting.  The author is really challenging the students to become better readers.   We will be close reading a passage from the book and discussing the author's feelings about Edward  using text evidence to show how he feels.  The students will use their reading journal to respond to text dependent questions about the story.
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The students will also present to the independent book slide show.

English:   In English we will focus on adjectives this week. We will also continue to learn more about metaphors and similes.

Science -The students will be able to identify an animal's or human's instinctive behaviors and learned behaviors.

News from Mrs. Cavoto's Room Feb. 8-Feb. 12

Thursday, Feb. 11- Valentine's Day Party- The students may bring in Valentines to pass out for each child in the room.  It will be from 1:40-2:20.
Friday, Feb. 12 & 15- No School
Tuesday & Wednesday, Feb. 16-17,  - Parent/Teacher conferences


Math -  We will review the subtraction strategies.  There will be a checkup quiz on Tuesday over subtraction of 3 & 4 digit numbers with and without zeros.  The students will learn  measurement benchmarks and scale and use different units to measure length and distance.  They will use ratio tables to convert  given distances from kilometers to meters.

Spelling - This week in spelling the students will work with words that the suffixes ed and ing.  They will be responsible for workbook pages 252-254 in volume 1.  The test will be on Tuesday of this week.

Reading  This week we will continue our "Journeys" Unit. We will begin reading the novel The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. This story tells the tale of a china rabbit who goes on an adventure and learns how to love. We will begin by close reading an excerpt from the first chapter.

English-I will conference with the students on their response to their writing comparing the grandfather to his grandson and how his grandson came to feel as if he really knows his grandfather from the story Grandfather's Journey.

Science - This week the students will understand how the behaviors of animals help them meet their basic needs.  They will describe instinctive behaviors and learned behaviors.