Hello Team Blowey Parents! I hope you all enjoyed the February vacation! Hopefully the transition back to school days will be as smooth as butter!
ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:
Today students are going home with a packet of math games (directions and recording sheets if needed). These are what they can do to practice their math goals at home (math facts should still be practiced as well). We have learned how to play all of the games here at school and the students have had a chance to become familiar with each of the games. Unfortunately, I cannot send home all of the materials needed for some of the games. For example, 100 connecting cubes for each student. However, you can be creative and use materials you already have at home. If students need connecting cubes, try cutting up squares of paper to use instead. If students need play money, try using real money. If students need counters, you can use anything like rocks, shells, paper clips, pennies, etc. I hope you have fun!
Students are also taking home their team jerseys today! They came out so well thanks to all of the hard work from the students and the parent volunteers who would able to help us out last Friday! I told students that they may take them home and where them whenever they would like. As a fun day, students were told that we could all wear our jerseys this Friday! (No worries, I already washed all of the shirts for you so they are ready to go!)
The new homework policy began today. For students who do not bring their homework in on Monday, they will miss out on their earned time that day. If students have not practiced their goals at home, they will be spending their earned time throughout the week working on the goals that they should have been practicing at home instead. Doing the homework is not a choose. Instead, students get to choose HOW they will be practicing at home. Once a student circles a choice on the menu, it's like they are making a promise to me that they will do that activity at home. The only time it is ok to deviate from that choice is when your family chooses another way to practice the goal instead.
This week in...
LANGUAGE ARTS: Students have been introduced to their new reader's notebooks. This is a notebook that has been created so that students will be able to practice their independence even more so in the classroom. Inside, students have found a CAFE strategies menu, a reading log, a goals sheet, a 5 stars rating sheet, and a reading response sheet. Students will also be graphing how many books they read each month. Students will be practicing how to use this tool throughout the week. To help with this, I will be doing mini lessons revolving around each piece of the reader's notebook.
Monday: Students were introduced to the parts of the notebook. Today, they had time to practice how to put books on their reading log to show and prove that they have read the books inside their book box. They also had time to practice using the graph for the number of books they read each month. Some students also had the time to sit down with me and chart their own individual reading goals inside their reader's notebook. By the end of the week, every student will have had a chance to sit with me and chart their goals.
Tuesday: Students will be talking more about what it means to expand your vocabulary and some more strategies to help us go about it. Many of the strategies students have already been introduced to, but now with the help of our reader's notebook, students will have a visual of all of the strategies we will talk about this year.
Wednesday: We will be talking about one way to use post-its to help us comprehend what is happening in a story. This skill is especially helpful when reading chapter books. Basically, students will have the chance to practice "talking back" to their book by writing their thoughts down on the post-it and then placing it in their reader's notebooks. When they "talk back" to the book, it could be about a question they have, a prediction, a connection they made, etc.
Thursday: Students will have the chance to practice rating their books just like real books critics do. When they finish reading a book they will give the book 0-5 stars and explain why they decided to give the book the amount of stars they did.
Friday: We will be talking more in depth about what it means to respond to a book. Each student was given a reading response suggestion sheet inside of their notebook. Some examples of suggestions would be: write about your favorite part of the book, describe a part of the book that made you ask questions, describe what you might change about the book if you could rewrite it, etc. Students may choose any one of the suggestions to respond to and write in complete sentences.
While students are practicing using each of the components of the reader's notebook, they will still be practicing their literacy goals. They will still be working on comprehension, fluency, accuracy, and vocabulary but now they will do it with the help of the notebook. Students will also still have time to work on their spelling goals.
New Writing Project: Now that we are done with our persuasive letter writing, we will be moving into a super fun writing project that goes along with the read aloud book that we just finished, Sideways Stories from Wayside School. To fit with all of the silly personalities in our classroom, Team Blowey will be creating their own sideways stories to share with everyone. Once we have had the chance to complete the writing, we will create a classroom book titled Sideways Stories from Room 10 by Team Blowey. I'm so excited to get started!
Math: We are continuing to work on our game menu to help us understand how to add and subtract numbers better. Students will be working both independently and with a partner to complete the goals on the menu. Each student will play each of the games three times before we start unpacking our next few standards. (Almost all of the games we play in school were sent home with the homework packets today. Play with your child! I promise you'll have lots of fun!)
Science: This week we will be talking about how the "magical bees and magical wind" came into our classroom over vacation to help pollinate the brassica plants. With the help of the bees and the wind, a couple of our flowers now have little pods that are holding the seeds of the next flowers that will be growing. Oh, the wonders of the plant life cycle!
Read aloud books: In honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday this week (March 2nd), we will be reading various Dr. Seuss books! Some of his books are my all-time favorites! Have you ever read Oh, the Places You'll Go? If not, you definitely check it out at the library! You'll be sure to love it!
Don't forget... TEAM JERSEYS THIS FRIDAY!
I hope you have a wonderful week!
No comments:
Post a Comment