HANNAN

HAPPENINGS
Whats New in Room 46 ?

FEBRUARY
Dear Parents,
We survived January with no snow
days! Its a much better winter
than last year. I hope I havent
spoken too soon!
Im looking forward to meeting
with all of you at conference. You
should be receiving an e-mail
reminder from Sign-Up Genius as
to which day and time your
conference is.
The children can send in
Valentines Day cards and bring in
a decorated Valentine box or bag
to hold them.

LANGUAGE ARTS
Continue to encourage as much
reading as possible at home. It is
the single most important thing
you can do as a parent with
regards to PSSA preparation.
Grammar skills I will teach this
month are singular and plural
possessives, verbs in the present,
past, and future, suffixes
ful,ly,er,est.
We will continue to apply all
comprehension strategies as we
read and supply text evidence for
everything we are questioned
about for a passage.

Target reading strategies we will

work on will be inference, main
idea, summarizing, analyzing and
evaluating what we read.
Target reading skills will be
continued work with authors
purpose, point of view, compare
and contrast themes, setting and
plots. We will also work on
explaining how illustrations
contribute to the message of a
text. Text features and text
organization will continue to be
stressed when reading non- fiction
passages.
We are still working on an
informational writing unit. The
children are currently engaged in
an informational Black History
project. They will be using their
research to create a DIGITAL
STORY on the I-pads.
We will also continue to revisit past
pieces for the purpose of revision.
Their writing skills continue to
show wonderful growth.

MATH
PLEASE HAVE YOUR CHILDREN
PRACTICE THEIR MULTIPLICATION
FACTS! Many children are well
below benchmark. If they dont
know their multiplication facts
there is no way they will know their
division facts. There are several
children who still have not
mastered addition and subtraction
facts. These facts should be
committed to memory by now.
We will be leaving the Math
Investigation book for a while
because I feel the topics that we
will be doing now are not that well
covered for the common core. We
will eventually return to the book.
I will begin a unit on geometry. We
will review shapes and solids and
their similarities and differences.
The main focus will be on polygons,
parallelograms, rhombus,
quadrilaterals, and angles. We will
discuss how the properties of each
and how they are alike and
different.
We will then start a unit on
fractions. There will be a heavy
emphasis on fractions on the PSSA.
We will learn fractions in a set,
equivalent fractions (common core,
new this year to third grade),
fractions on a number line(common
core, also new)and fractional parts
of a whole.

SCIENCE
We will start a unit on Water and
Weather. I will start with chapters
5 and 6 in their science books first
to provide them with background
knowledge about the topics. Then
we will work with the Foss Water
Kits.
This is a fun and very enjoyable
unit for the children.
Topics I will cover will be the
importance of water, different
forms of water, water cycle,
weather patterns and various
storms.
We will then move to the
discovery part of the unit and use
the Foss Kits. They will observe
the interaction of water with
different materials and the
movement of water on a slope.
They will observe the different
properties of water. They will
create their own thermometer and
observe the effect temperature has
on various experiments. Another
investigation involves the effect of
surface area and air temperature
on evaporation. They will observe
condensation.
At the end of the unit they will
create their own waterwheel!
Throughout the unit I expect them
to use their scientific thinking
processes to conduct the various
experiments. They will
hypothesize, observe,
communicate to the group, take
notes, compare and organize their

data in their science notebooks.

A major grade will be given for this
work.

Monday, February 16th NO

SCHOOL PRESIDENTS
DAY

SOCIAL STUDIES

Friday, February 20th

JUMP ROPE FOR HEART

We completed our unit on map

skills, however there will be an
ongoing emphasis of these skills.
We will locate on a map various
places we learn about during
reading and we will continue to
learn the rest of our state
abbreviations.

Wednesday, February 11th

CONFERENCES HALF DAY
FOR STUDENTS
Thursday, February 12th
CONFERENCES HALF DAY
FOR STUDENTS
Friday, February 13th
CONFERENCES AM ONLY
NO SCHOOL FOR
STUDENTS!

EARLY REMINDER FOR

PSSA TESTING THE
WINDOW OF TESTING IS
APRIL 13th TO APRIL
24th**PLEASE DO NOT
PLAN ANY TRIPS OR
APPOINTMENTS DURING
THIS WINDOW OF DATES

Contact me with any

questions or concerns. My
door is always open to you.
Together we will help your
child achieve his or her
personal BEST!!!
bhannan@wcasd.net