Parents,
Thanks for your support last week with the Fun Run!!!
Word Study
Last week we worked a bit with syllables. These are important as they help your reader/writer chunk words for spelling and decoding. We’ve also continued to look at how words are similar such as looking at consonant clusters at the beginnings of words. Making these connections between words again help us to read and write more effectively.
Last week we worked a bit with syllables. These are important as they help your reader/writer chunk words for spelling and decoding. We’ve also continued to look at how words are similar such as looking at consonant clusters at the beginnings of words. Making these connections between words again help us to read and write more effectively.
Reader’s Workshop
Our goal bags are up and running. Last week your child had an individual conference to discuss steps towards meeting his/her reading goal. Some students have several easier books to practice fluency (I’ve been emphasizing that the one way to increase fluency is by reading easier or familiar texts). Some students brought home a chapter book with which they will practice retelling. Please remember there are no time limits on the bags. However, we also started reading groups this week sending yet another bag home with your child. This bag must be returned daily with your child. This week we shared how readers select just right books by using strategies such as the 5 finger rule. We also discussed when and when not to abandon a book. We ended the week reminding students how readers take care of our classroom libraries.
Our goal bags are up and running. Last week your child had an individual conference to discuss steps towards meeting his/her reading goal. Some students have several easier books to practice fluency (I’ve been emphasizing that the one way to increase fluency is by reading easier or familiar texts). Some students brought home a chapter book with which they will practice retelling. Please remember there are no time limits on the bags. However, we also started reading groups this week sending yet another bag home with your child. This bag must be returned daily with your child. This week we shared how readers select just right books by using strategies such as the 5 finger rule. We also discussed when and when not to abandon a book. We ended the week reminding students how readers take care of our classroom libraries.
Writer's Workshop
Our students are loving writing poetry! It’s fun to see their excitement and hear them read their poetry with pride. We used Pumpkin Eye as a mentor text last week. We found the adjective and noun patterns throughout the book, made charts of similar words and recreating similar poems. We also learned a bit about form poetry where we borrowed a Hello/Goodbye format from a Goodbye Spring/Hello Summer poem and changed it to create a Fall/Winter poem. Writers also took a break from some poetry to learn about persuasive writing. In social studies students were asked to write a persuasive for the community they liked to live in. So we first introduced a persuasive through writing sales advertisements for a haunted house. What fun they had with these!!! They will be hanging in the hall beginning next week.
Our students are loving writing poetry! It’s fun to see their excitement and hear them read their poetry with pride. We used Pumpkin Eye as a mentor text last week. We found the adjective and noun patterns throughout the book, made charts of similar words and recreating similar poems. We also learned a bit about form poetry where we borrowed a Hello/Goodbye format from a Goodbye Spring/Hello Summer poem and changed it to create a Fall/Winter poem. Writers also took a break from some poetry to learn about persuasive writing. In social studies students were asked to write a persuasive for the community they liked to live in. So we first introduced a persuasive through writing sales advertisements for a haunted house. What fun they had with these!!! They will be hanging in the hall beginning next week.
Math
Workshop
I hope your child has shared with you how we run math
workshop! Whenever possible (and lessons
align to this model) we teach math in a workshop model. We started this last week. Students have been placed in like ability
groups and are taught lessons through a large group mini-lesson and then a
small group lesson. While I’m teaching a
small group students are at various math stations practicing similar skills in
a variety of ways. Ipods are one of the
stations, but Monday –Thursday they must choose math games on the ipod. On Fridays we have math explorations which
are different and any app can be played on the ipods then.
We completed unit 1 last week by learning about fact families,
name collections (Other names for 50 would be…25+25, 49=1, 60-10 etc.), frames
and arrows where we follow an addition or subtraction rule to skip count and
finally function boxes where students have to decode the rule for numbers going
in and out of an imaginary function box (if 3 goes in and 5 comes out, the rule
would be +2). We ended last week with
explorations about weight with a spring scale and a balance and also the
introduction of multiplication through and egg/nest activity. This is also a time when we put out familiar
math games for students to practice.
This week students took their unit 2 progress check. They did fairly well and the results went
home with your child this week. Please
be sure to review this with your child. Many
students struggles on the last page with the function box. Next, we started unit 3 with coin
practice. We started simple with showing
coins to represent values. Then it got a
bit more challenging with making change.
This is a concept we will continue to work on throughout the year. Please try to practice this at home with your
child using loose change.
Social Studies
We completed our “Community” unit and took our unit test. Our next unit is about the geography of our
community.
Important Dates
and Reminders:
-Thursday, October
31st: Halloween
Parade at 2:30. Our classroom party will follow from 3:00-4:00.
-Tuesday, November
5th : Walled Lake
Schools Safety, Security and Technology Bond Election. Please remember to vote!
-Thursday, November
14th: Parent/Teacher
Conferences
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