Asalaamu'alykum Dear Parents,
We've had a busy 2 weeks of learning and fun!
Islamic Studies: Our seerah unit has come to an end. We covered about 8 chapters in a span of 3-4 weeks and learned quite a bit about our beloved Prophet (saw) and some of his close companions. Students completed workbook activities for each chapter, wrote an open book test and finished a concise yet comprehensive package for understanding. The take-home lesson from this unit for us all was: the prophet (saw) was sent to perfect and his qualities demonstrated how easy it can be for us to emulate his noble character.
Math: Last week and this week students worked on addition with regrouping and subtraction with regrouping. We did ample of activities and exercises to practice our regrouping skills using more than one method. For addition with regrouping students learned the vertical method, expanded method and ten-base block method. For subtraction with regrouping, students focused on just 2 of the three methods: vertical and ten-base block. We will continue subtraction with regrouping next week as we still have one more method to cover but also because I found that we need more practice with subtraction.
Language: We worked on pronouns all week this week. Students learned that pronouns are words that replace nouns. They familiarized themselves with object and subject pronouns and their uses. For practice, they used pronouns in their own writing as well. They wrote a journal entry about their imaginary pet and worked on a pronoun pizza activity which was helpful because it was a nice visual for them to see that pronouns do in fact take the place of nouns. The week before last, students learned about contractions: a shortened form of two words. For e.g. didn't (did not). Their attention was brought to the use of the apostrophe and how it is used to omit one or more of the letters. For a fun class activity, students worked on "contraction caterpillars" to identify and make different contractions while writing a paragraph.
Spelling: Students wrote their spelling test on lesson 25 last Thursday and are now onto spelling words with different endings (Lesson 26). They will be tested on the following words next Thursday: worked, sending, wants, glasses, sees, burning, reached, boxes, wishes, opening.
BONUS: subject, object, regroup, spring and rajab
Science: A practice test was sent home yesterday as part of the homework pack. Students have a unit test on Matter next Friday, April 7th. In class we'll be reviewing what we've learned thus far in the upcoming week inshaAllah. Also, we finally planted the flower seeds in the clean yogurt containers students brought from home (than you to all parents!). It was a long time coming. Now we'll be tracking and recording the growth of the seeds on a weekly basis.
Social Studies: Last week we worked a whole lot on our mapping skills. We now know that maps help us to find a location of a certain place. It tells us where the place is from where we are located. Using cardinal directions students had to find their way around a community, a city and a zoo by answering questions related to each map. They also drew and wrote about a time when they took a roadtrip and what happened if they got lost. Once they grasped the concept and felt more comfortable with giving and following directions, I announced a pop quiz and they completed it with little to no difficulty alhumdulilah.
Art: On Friday we worked on an art activity called "Spring Birds". Students drew, colored and cut out their own animated birds perched on a branch. They practiced mixing colors and used different coloring techniques with oil pastels, chalk and paint. Their creativity was flowing mashaAllah. It got pretty messy but it ended up being worth it. The week prior to last, students worked another spring fun art activity where they learned how to dye coffee filters using a range of different colors. 2A and 2B will be making a collage out of this pretty coffee filter craft very soon inshaAllah. It will be worth the display!
Reminders:
- Please remind all students to return any library items soon to be due back to the library
- Please encourage your children to read on RazKids everyday for 20 minutes
- Homework packs are due Thursday, April 6th.
JazakAllah khayr.
