Unit 4, Week 1 - Dear Mr. Blueberry / What is Science?

     This week our Focus Stories will help us to answer the question: What kinds of things do scientists study? Our first story this week will be Dear Mr. Blueberry, by Simon James.  This book falls under the genre of Fantasy.   Over a school vacation, the main character, Emily, decides she simply must write to her teacher when she discovers a blue whale living in her pond. Her teacher, Mr. Blueberry, answers that she must be mistaken, because whales live in the ocean, not in ponds. Throughout the summer, Emily and Mr. Blueberry exchange letters, until Emily has a happy surprise to share with her teacher. In the process, Emily learns a lot about whales, and Mr. Blueberry leans even more about imagination, faith, and love.

     Our second Focus Story this week will be What is Science?, written by Rebecca Kai Dotlich and illustrated by Sachiko Yoshikawa.  This book is a poem, written to introduce young readers to the wonderful world of science.  Stars and planets, rocks and soil, hurricanes and airplanes—science is all of these things and so much more. It’s also about curiosity: asking questions and exploring possible answers.
     Our Target Skills this week will include: blending phonemes, identifying medial sounds, pausing for punctuation, classifying and categorizing, identifying key details in a story, identifying the main idea of a story, and summarizing.  We will also be focusing on the letter Ii, and its corresponding phoneme, /i/--both the long and short vowel sounds.  

Letter: Ii

High-Frequency Words: is, of, many, how, so , where  (Please continue to practice ALL of our high-frequency words at home!)

Oral Vocabulary (Dear Mr. Blueberry): information, perhaps, pleased, pond, spurt, travel

Selection Vocabulary (What is Science?): fossils, geodes, geysers, glaciers


Thank you to www.amazon.com for the cover images and summary information!