Weekly Theme: Gingerbread
Shared Reading: Several versions of Gingerbread stories Communication Arts: We will be working with the following skills…
Handwriting Letters: Oo – forming letters on handwriting lines Writing: Working with partners to hear and add more sounds in words. *One way I help the kids with this is by having them clap the words’ syllables first. Then they stretch out each syllable instead of trying the whole word at once. Math: We will continue our unit on non-standard measurement. Ways to help at home: Have your child read to you every night. Focus on tracking print, reading exactly what is on the page (no adding words), and using the strategy Lips the Fish & Eagle Eye as the first means for decoding unknown words. We have used "Chunky Monkey" to look for chunks we know within a word to help us. Reading tests will be given starting after Thanksgiving. To be considered on grade level your child will need to be reading at a level 2B. Upcoming Events: Tuesday, December 1 – Hat Day & Make It Take It Night @ 6:00 Friday, December 4 - Book orders are due We are in need of 100 to 200 piece puzzles. These kids love to work puzzles when they finish work early and at Free Choice!
Theme: Fall leaves and changes in our weather. Kids learned what each season is called and how a tree changes with each. Next week: Thanksgiving and turkeys Reading: Students learned that asking questions is a powerful way to guide learning. We charted questions about leaves, then we read non-fiction books to find the answers to our questions. Students learned how to identify verbs by reading "When the Leaf Blew In". Next week: Retelling and sequencing stories Sight Words: do, got had Next week: Review of list A Writing: We will review how to use the word wall to spell sight words correctly and how to use space sticks to make our writing more readable. We will then discuss using elaborate verbs to make our writing more descriptive. Handwriting and Word Work: Nn - Handwriting is to always begin at the top and move downward! This will be a difficult habit to break. Please be sure your child begins their letters from the top. In "Segmenting the Sound" we changed each part of the word to make a new word. Ex: "nut" became "nub," "nub" became "tub," "tub" became "tab" Math: We are finished with patterning. The kids really enjoyed showing off how well they make complex patterns and break their train. Next week: we will start a new unit on measurement using connecting cubes and craft sticks. Enrichment: Students learned that leaves use air and water to make food for the tree, and that the colors we see in fall - were always there but hiding under the green pigment. Less sunlight in the fall means less food in the leaf. This lessons the amount of chlorophyll and the green disappears leaving the beautiful colors shining. Important Dates November 25-27 - Thanksgiving Break- No School November 30 - Book It Calendar Due December 1- Hat Day- bring a canned food item December 1 - Make it Take it @ 6:00 December 18- Dismiss @12:30 December 19 - January 1 Christmas Break- NO SCHOOL January 4 - Return to School November 9 - 13
We are in need of 100 to 200 piece puzzles. These kids love to work puzzles when they finish work early and at Free Choice! Don't buy new. Send any you have that your kids are finished with. Theme: Students shared their knowledge about our American flag. They learned meaning behind the big words used and why we show our respect when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. They said the Pledge individually for our second quarter Social Studies assessment. The page used for assessment will be sent home today. If your child struggled, you can practice at home, then tell them to say it again for me. I'll be happy to listen and change the assessment score! Kids also learned about other American symbols: The Statue of Liberty, The American Bald, Eagle, and The Liberty Bell. Next week: Fall leaves and the changes in our weather Reading: Identifying facts in text, locating sight words in text, and tracking print. Next week: Nonfiction texts, identifying the topic and supporting details of a text, asking and answering questions about a text, and quickly recognizing/producing beginning sounds in words. Sight Words: to, of, like Next Week: do, got, had Writing: We created and used a writing rubric as a checklist to make sure our stories have everything they need. Kids learned which letters are vowels and that every syllable has a vowel in it. They will be stretching words more carefully to hear the vowel sounds. They reviewed the Word Wall for those "snap" words that don't really mean anything, but that connect our sentences. These are our High Frequency words that are best to just know without having to think about them. Next week: We will review how to use the word wall to spell sight words correctly and how to use space sticks to make our writing more readable. We will then discuss using elaborate verbs to make our writing more descriptive. Handwriting and Word Work: Mm Students practiced many times. Mm is really difficult to write. Students wrote directions for saying the Pledge of Allegiance all by themselves! (They did the handwriting, but I helped with spelling.) I watched each child write and realized that most of the kids begin their letters at the bottom and move their pencil upward. Handwriting is to always begin at the top and move downward! This will be a difficult habit to break. Please be sure your child begins their letters from the top. Math: Kids made patterns from various math materials looking at using differences in them rather than just color. They began recording their patterns. Next week we will continue on making and continuing patterns, then breaking each pattern down into a unit (train car). Unit 3 will end on Friday. Ways to help at home: Make flashcards for each sight word list and have your child read through list A and B every night before bed. If your child can successfully read each word in 3 seconds or less have them write a sentence using one of the words each night. Make sure they have spaces between their words, the sight word is spelled correctly, and the sentence has a capital at the beginning and punctuation at the end. We have a class goal: 15 of 17 students will know ALL 12 sight words from list A. The word lists are under the parent informational links tab under the tab High Frequency Word Lists. At this time, six students have met our goal! Congratulations to: Isaac, Sam, Emma, Jocelyn, Roosevelt, and Benjamin! Several others are very close. Important Dates: *The book order date has been extended through Sunday. This is a great time to order for Christmas gifts. Just let me know to keep the order a secret! *Thanksgiving Break is November 25, 26, 27 My heart is bursting with pride at how well my kids behaved at the Veterans' Day assembly! We have talked all week about how important it is to be respectful to our flag and to those who have served our country. I begged the kids to be on their best behavior for our guests today. They sat amazingly quiet and still for 45 minutes on the hard cafeteria floor. Wow! Please hug your sweetie tonight and tell him/her how proud we both are. Today was definitely one of the best days we have had out of 60!
Reminders: Book orders are due tomorrow. Our first recess tends to be a bit cold. Please be sure to send jackets or coats for the forecasted weather. Sixteen of my seventeen families attended our conference. I truly enjoyed hearing about the learning your children are taking home and practicing on their own. Please continue to share your stories. If you have questions concerning your child's progress throughout the year, we can speak or meet any time.
November 4-6 Theme: Students shared their knowledge about spiders (schema). They learned about spider body parts, that spiders are "aracnids" not insects, spiders have eight eyes, and they ooze a gel into their meals' blood before they eat it. Reading: We did a picture-walk through a non-fiction spider book to talk about vocabulary words we might see in it, then read the book easily using all of our reading strategies "Eagle Eye," "Lips the Fish," "Stretchy Snake," and "Flip the Dolphin". Students also learned a new strategy this week called “Chunky Monkey”. Looking for small words or chunks of words inside harder words helps us read them. Next week: We will read books about owls and bats and then compare and contrast them. Reading groups will begin! Sight Words: have, look, the Next Week: a review of words on list A Writing: We worked on sketching out pictures quickly on rough drafts to help remember stories. Every student edited and completed at least one narrative book to display for conference nights. Next week: Students will begin a new planning page in preparation for another narrative. We will practice using punctuation in stories and practice rereading stories to make sure they make sense. Handwriting and Word Work: Kk is a difficult letter to write correctly. Students practiced many times. Students will practice the form and sound of the letter Ll, that the tongue is placed under the top teeth to say words that begin with Ll. We will play "Where's The Sound" to stretch small words hearing the beginning, middle, and ending sounds, then change a letter to make a new word. Math: Next week we will make patterns from various math materials. Next week we will continue on making and continuing patterns. We have a class goal: 15 of 17 students will know ALL 12 sight words from list A. The word lists are under the parent informational links tab under the tab High Frequency Word Lists. We will be discussing what students can do and what I can do to help us reach our goal. Important Dates:
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May 2019
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