Important Reminders:
Field Trip Permission Slips went home last week for our field trip to the Butterfly House. Please sign and return the slip with the $9.00 fee to school with your child. Thank you!
Class Updates:
In math, we have started Chapter 2 on Number Patterns. The students have been practicing skip counting by 2s, 5s, and 10s. Next week, we will focus on lessons 3-6, which cover concepts including repeated addition, arrays, and even vs. odd numbers. If your child needs fact fluency practice on addition or subtraction facts, another good website for them to use at home is Front Row. There is a fact practice choice in the math section. A link is provided under "Important Links" on this blog and students have login information on the lists in their green folders.
In reading, we have been continuing to decode tricky words. Students are also working on stopping to check for understanding and making predictions about what they will read in their reading groups.
For our personal narrative writing unit, the children learned the importance of adding transition words to their writing to help it flow. They worked with their writing partners to share their work and give each other feedback in the form of a "glow" for something they did well, and a "grow" for something they can improve upon in their next story. The students are working on a second narrative piece and once they are done, they will be choosing one of their narratives to publish.
We continued to learn about landforms and changes to the earth's surface in science by trying to answer the question, "Why is there sand at the beach?" The children watched videos, had discussions with their learning partners, and worked cooperatively in groups to simulate how large boulders can be broken down into smaller and smaller rocks as they travel in rivers from high land to low land. They learned that sand is really made from tiny rocks! The children also examined different types of sand and pebbles with magnifying glasses so they could see the many shapes and colors that made up the sand. We will continue to learn about the concepts of erosion and weathering next week.
Important Reminders:
Monday, September 25th is the last day for the Great American Fundraiser.
Mid-Quarter Reports came home in Friday's green folders. Please sign the bottom of the form and return them to school with your child this week.
Picture Day is Wednesday, September 27th. Picture Day order forms came home in the students' green folders on Friday.
Scholastic Book Orders are due by Wednesday, September 27th.
Be on the lookout for Field Trip Permission Slips that will be coming home on Tuesday for our first field trip to the Butterfly House on October 17th.
Class Updates:
We have started an earth science unit in science. We completed our first Mystery Science Investigation to learn more about rivers. The children developed a model of the earth's surface to determine that rivers start in higher elevations and flow out to the oceans. Students worked in pairs to create their models of mountains and valleys and then made it "rain" to see how the water flowed.
In math, we have finished the lessons from Chapter 1 and will be reviewing on Monday and Tuesday. Our Chapter 1 test will be on Wednesday, the 27th. Review pages from the math book will come home with students to help them study. The next chapter will be about number patterns. We will begin with lessons 1 and 2 on skip counting at the end of the week.
Students are continuing to work hard on their personal narrative stories. They are revising their work to make sure they are writing about a "seed story". They are also picking strategies to hook the reader at the beginning of their stories and strengthen the endings of the stories.
Our reading focus is currently on ways to decode unknown words and also understand the meaning of new vocabulary. Backing up to re-read the sentence, substituting a word that would make sense and then checking the first letter, and looking at all the parts of the word are just a few of the many strategies the children are learning. The students are also using "stop and jots" to record their thinking while they read.
Important Reminders:
The Great American Fundraiser is underway. Students brought home their fundraiser packets this past Tuesday.
There will be no school on Friday, September 22 due to teacher professional development.
Scholastic Book Order Forms for September will come home next week. If you would like to place an order, please return the order forms with a check payment to Scholastic by September 27th. No cash please. You can also place the order directly online using the class code on the back of the forms. I am looking for a parent volunteer who would be interested in helping with separating and dating book orders for me once a month. Please send me an email if you would like to help out. Thank you!
Class Updates:
I was inspired by one of the generosity of one of the students in class who decided to give the gift of books to our classroom library to celebrate her birthday. For my birthday this week, the students were able to open presents! The class received two Connect 4 games that will come in handy for indoor recess days.
In math, we have been learning about strategies to help us subtract, including counting back to subtract and doubles facts. The students have been using some fun technology including the Prodigy website and QR code scavenger hunts with the iPads to review what they have learned. We have now started to move into the third part of Chapter 1, which emphasizes the relationship between addition and subtraction. Fact families and two-step word problems will be the focus of next week. We will cover lessons 11-13.
For reading, the children have been working hard to read with fluency and expression. We are also learning the importance of stopping to think while we read to check for understanding. We have been reading Katie Woo Has the Flu to help us with our strategies.
The kids have been very busy during writing workshop! Students have picked a small moment story to write a personal narrative about. They learned to plan out their stories across their fingers and then across the pages. Some students also sketched out their ideas first to help them begin writing. Next, we used the mentor text, Owl Moon, to learn how authors write with description and all five senses. The children are revising to add descriptive details into their pieces. To help get inspiration for adding small details, the students worked with their writing partners to examine shells and rocks with magnifying glasses. Now, they are attempting to use the same approach to "zoom in" on their stories and add tiny details to bring their stories to life.
All students should have new spelling words in their green folders. Test dates are marked at the top of the spelling lists. Please note that the Friday spelling group will be testing on Monday, September 25th due to school being closed on Friday the 22nd.
We have wrapped up the first two lessons in social studies about communities. The students used what they learned about urban, rural, and suburban communities to make a graphic organizer to visually compare and contrast the three types. Next week, we will shift to science for a few weeks. Our first unit will cover earth science.
Important Reminders:
This Wednesday, September 13th is an Early Release Day with a 1:40 dismissal. Please make sure your child knows how they are going home that day in case it is different from their normal dismissal plans.
Our class visits the school library on Tuesdays. Please have your child bring their books back to school on this day.
If you send money to school with your child for their lunch account, please place the money in an envelope with your child's name on it. This helps to make sure money is not accidentally lost and is allocated to the proper account. Thank you!
I am incredibly excited to report that our class's Donor's Choose Project was fully funded! I am filled with gratitude to those who supported the children in our class by donating to the project. Our new flexible seating items, including bean bag chairs, wobble stools, cushions, and cafe stools should arrive in the next few weeks. Stay tuned for pictures when the items arrive!
Class Updates:
In math, the students spent last week continuing to work on the addition part of Chapter 1. They learned strategies for adding three numbers and also practiced the steps to solving word problems with addition. This coming week, we will learn about subtraction strategies and cover lessons 7-10.
Reading groups got off to a great start this week! I am thrilled about the level of participation in our groups and how hard the students are working. Students are beginning to work on making text-to-self and text-to-text connections to the books they are reading. Next week, we will focus on word solving strategies and on monitoring our reading to increase the number of self-corrections we make.
In writing, the students have started the brainstorming stage of our personal narrative unit. They are working on sketching and listing their ideas for topics. We have learned to begin with big "watermelon" topics and work on scaling them down to small, focused "seed stories". We also finished our "Best Part of Me" projects. They turned out beautifully!
After two weeks of learning several ways to practice spelling words and reviewing some key high frequency words, we will begin spelling groups next week. You should have received an email from me regarding which day of the week your child will receive their words and have their tests.
The communities the students created in social studies are finished and look fantastic! Each group included many places people live, work, play, and solve problems. I loved to see the creativity of the children. Each community was unique! Last week we continued our study with the first half of Lesson 2, which covers comparing and contrasting urban, rural, and suburban communities. The students worked in partners to read a scholastic news article about our topic, and we started making a graphic organizer to represent what we would see in each type of community. We will finish up lesson 2 this week and then get ready to start our first science unit.
