What's a homophone? Is it a cell phone? Is it expensive?

Homophones are not the newest technology in phones. However, you can get your hands on them very easily! Homophones are very common. These are words that sound the same, but mean different things. Students are aware of many of the homophone pairs/pears yet are not always sure on which/witch one is spelled a certain way/weigh. See what I mean?

As we learn and become more aware of them, below are some AWESOME games and fact sheets to help your child.

Are there/their/they're any you aren't sure of yourself???

Fact sheet that teaches homophones

learn and play games with homophones

Test your homophone skills

Homophone quiz

Jeopardy Homophones

Cause and Effect SNAP SNAP

This week we will work on finding cause and effect relationships in our readings. Every effect is caused by something. As readers, we need to be aware of the causes for the characters actions. This skill aids reading comprehension as it requires students to first think about what is causing the things to happen in a story.

Readers will learn a catchy little tune in class this week. Feel free to sing along..... Remember The Adam's Family Song????

"Cause and Effect SNAP SNAP
Cause and Effect SNAP SNAP
You will know the cause it came first.
It caused the effect to burst.
So read before to learn why.
If you look back the text won't lie!"


The book If You Give a Mouse a Cookie has many examples of cause and effect. We will be watching a DVD this week of this story and recording the examples we find. Be sure you ask your growing reader to find an example of cause and effect in their book.

Cause and Effect practice
Quiz your skills
Which is the best cause and effect?
Matching activity

Happy Monday!

We've got the main idea in our hands!

This week we have been studying how to decide on the main idea of a story. The main idea is often hard for students to grasp as it is not usually stated in a story. Students need to think critically about what everything was about. They were told to look at their hands to help them visualize this process. Their palm is the main idea and their fingers are the supporting details.

For example, if the main idea of a story is that they had a tasty lunch, the 'tasty lunch' is the palm of their hand. Their fingers would be the details that prove and support the good lunch such as: pizza, favorite drink, or whatever makes a good lunch.

Students are asked to find the main idea and supporting details on every reading test. Finding supporting details is a skill that requires them to GO BACK..... GO BACK..... GO BACK into the text. Yes, it takes more time, but is worth finding the correct answer. Encourage your child to discuss the main idea of their readings to you. Ask for details to prove their thinking.

Here are some practice sites for finding the main idea and details in a story. These are great tools for your child to use to help increase their reading comprehension. You can log these stories and they can count for your daily 20 minutes of reading as well.

Finding the Main Idea

Short paragraphs for Main Idea

See you on Monday for Open House!