Friday, November 4th

 Hello Weckie Families!

Happy Friday! What a week it has been... Halloween followed by a sick kiddo at the Weckstein's has made for a tricky week for sure. A huge thank you to our guest teacher, Mrs. Jackie Valentine, for keeping things running smoothly in my absence Wednesday and Thursday!  A special thank you to everyone who sent in items for our Boo Bash Halloween Breakfast as well as to all who gave of their time to help work our party (Mrs. Thomas, Mrs. Anglin and Mrs. Vazquez)! We had a fantastic morning together! 

Readers' Workshop
In Readers' Workshop we wrapped up our "Readers Grow Like Beanstalks" unit! We had a couple ending mini-lessons including:

• I can identify how the author made the whole story click together.
• I can reteach about a story using the phrase: Somebody wanted ________, but_______ so_______. (For example: Adam Rubin's book, Those Darn Squirrels.. Mr. Fookwire wanted to paint illustrations of the birds, but the squirrels kept eating all of the birdseed in his feeders which made the birds fly away, so the squirrels ended up dressing up like birds to make Mr. Fookwire happy). 
• I can determine what the author wanted to teach me from the story.
• I can predict the author's lesson from my sneak preview of the book.

Then we did a culminating activity where we talked about all of the new reading strategies we have learned and talked about which strategies we would most often pick for tricky and challenging words.

This week we moved into our Non-Fiction Reading Unit! We have started by talking how readers of non-fiction grown knowledge. Mini-lessons have included:

• Non-Fiction readers notice and learn from details in their text.
• Non-Fiction readers can put the parts of the text together in their mind.
• Non-Fiction readers can ask questions about the text/topic they are reading.

It was a big shift this week to book shop for non-fiction books to add to our book bins but there was also a lot of excitement about reading books on new topics for our readers!

Writers' Workshop

We continue to work on writing small moment personal narratives in Workshop. Mini-lessons have included topics like:

• I can revisit my ending to make it strong.
• I can check my writing over to make sure SNAP words are spelled correctly.
• As a writer, I can work hard, practice and get stronger each time I write.
• I can use a checklist to set goals for my writing.
• I can revise my story to match my intent and meaning.

Next week we'll dig deeper into mentor texts where we can find author's craft that we can try in our own writing to make it even stronger!

Math Workshop

In Math we wrapped up Unit 2!! We spent time finishing up with addition strategies for the near doubles facts, the turn-around rule for addition (which we proved does not work for subtraction), learned to play new games including: Evens and Odds, Money Exchange Game, Fishing for 10s and a pumpkin dice game. This week we spent time reviewing important concepts like evens and odds as well as using our addition strategies to solve number stories. We also took our Unit 2 Assessment, Unit 2 Cumulative Assessment and worked through the Unit 2 Challenge! Look for all of this to come home later next week! At the front of their packet, look for their Self-Assessment page. The check marks done in pencil were filled in at the beginning of the unit and the check marks done in color were done at the completion of the unit. It's interesting to see what they think they have improved in with the different skills and their comfort level with each!

Science

You may have heard the exciting news... we are botanists!!! Our science kit has arrived and we have done our first planting of brassica seeds. Each child is growing their own plant as we observe and learn about plant parts. More to come on this...

Important Upcoming Dates:

November 8, 2022  - NO SCHOOL - ELECTION DAY

November 17, 2022 - Half Day of School (dismissal around 12:10pm)

November 24-25, 2022 - NO SCHOOL - THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY

November 29, 2022 - Field Trip - WL Outdoor Education Center (YAY!)