Home-School Connection

Dear Family Member:

This week our class will be focusing on what heroes do. What makes
a hero or a heroine?

Here are some activities that you can do

with your child to help reinforce the skills
we’ll be practicing.

Word Workout (see page 114)

• Words to Know: synonyms Your child
will choose a hero or heroine. Together you
will make up sentences about this person,
using words from the list.
• Spelling/Phonics: variant vowel
spellings Your child will use the list words to complete two-line
poems. This week’s words contain the phonic sound of u spelled oo,
u, u_e, ew, ue, and ui as in June, or the sound of u spelled oo, ou, or
u as in wood, could, and pull.

Comprehension: sequence (see page 115)

Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Your child will read about inventions and use a timeline to answer
questions about sequence.

Unit 5 • Week 3 111

 Word Workout
Words to Know
Can you name one of your heroes? When you’ve chosen a person,
make up a sentence about him or her using one of the list words. Then
I’ll make up a different sentence about your hero using another one of
the words. We will do this for all the words. You can draw a picture of
your hero and then write a sentence using one or more of the words.

agree interest perform succeed

study challenging heroes discover

Spelling Words
Choose one of the words on the list to complete each poem. Then tell
me what letters spell the vowel sound you hear in each word.

room flu June new glue

fruit crook could full push

What’s that on your boot? I took a quick look,

Oops, I dropped some . And I spotted the .

The desk feels like goo. It’s so hard to pull.

Yes, I spilled some . That’s because it’s .

Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

The sled went whoosh I wish that you would.
When we gave it a . If only I .

I swept with the broom Don’t get any dew

All through the . On my coat that is .

I love the moon Jerry’s so blue

In the middle of . ‘Cause he has the .

Review: point coin

114 Unit 5 • Week 3

 Comprehension: Sequence

Inventions
Let’s read the paragraph together, which tells when some important
things we use every day were invented. Then we’ll answer the six
questions below.

Our lives are made easier by all kinds of inventions.

The paper clip was invented in 1867. In 1903, Orville
and Wilbur Wright made the first American
airplane flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.

Five years later, Henry Ford’s Model T was

first put on the market. It was the first
automobile that ordinary people could afford to
buy. In 1926, Robert Goddard tested the first
liquid-fuel rocket. This invention made the space
program possible.

A year later, Philo Farnsworth demonstrated the

first television. In 1981, IBM introduced the first
personal home computer.
1. In which year could ordinary people first afford to buy a car?
Copyright © The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

2. How many years are between the first airplane flight and the first
liquid-fuel rocket flight?

3. Which invention came first, the airplane or the

Model T?

4. When was the first television demonstrated?

5. Which is the oldest invention?

6. In which year was something invented that helps you do your

homework?

Unit 5 • Week 3 115