September 24th-28th

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS!

Our field trip to the Cumberland Fair is this Wednesday!  We will be going rain or shine so be sure to help your child dress appropriately.  Also, we will not be participating in any games, ride, or food while we are there so you will not need to send any more.  However, everyone will need to bring a bagged lunch that day!  If you have any questions please let me know!

The competition for box tops and labels for education is still happening!  Send any box tops or labels to our classroom!

We have time for snack everyday!  Send your child in with a nutritious snack.  Remember, please keep all peanut and peanut butter snacks as an at-home snack!

Last week, everyone should have received a paper newsletter with TONS of information about our classroom.  If you have any questions please let me know!

This week in...

Phonics:  We'll be studying the short e, short o, and short u sound.  We'll practice with the following words:  went, tell, pet, job, fog, not, tug, hut, tub, and bun.

Vocabulary:  Our new vocabulary words are:  share, wonderful, company, delighted, thinning, and enjoyed.  We'll be thinking about these words, figuring how what they mean, and how to use them in a sentence.  Then, we'll be searching for these words in a story called Making Muffins and a Friend by Vanessa Lavin.

Comprehension:  We will be analyzing story structure and the plot.  When we analyze a story's structure, we are looking at different parts of the story and thinking about how the author has organized the plot or the events.  When we analyze the plot of a story, we are thinking about the beginning, middle, and end of the story, so that we can better understand how the main character in the story solves a problem.

Writing:  We will begin a story of how we think our lives will look like in 20 years!  Team Blowey will be thinking about all aspects of our lives:  work, school, friends, family, ourselves, etc.  This will be a chance to let our imagination soar and dream big!  This week, students will brainstorm their ideas and create a story web.

Grammar:  This week we'll be talking about commands and exclamations.  A command is a sentence that gives an order or tells someone to do something.  An exclamation is a sentence that shows strong feeling.

Daily 5:  We now have four out of the five things that we need to do to become better readers and writers.  They are read to self, work on writing, read to someone, and word work.  Last week, we made our "I" chart for word work.  This week, we'll spend some time learning and practicing the appropriate way to use some of the materials that we'll use to help us practice our words.  

CAFE:  We have added another strategy to our CAFE menu.  We've talked a lot about picking "just right" books.  This is actually a strategy that will help us build our fluency (reading words accurately and with expression).  We'll be adding another three strategies to the board before the week is over.  Under fluency, we'll add "voracious reading".  Under expand vocabulary, we'll add "voracious reading" (yes, this is the same as the fluency strategy but it will also help us to expand our vocabulary as well).  Under comprehension, we'll add the strategy of being able to retell a story with the beginning, middle, and end.  The story have already had some practice with this but now we will be having more practice!

Social Science:  Today we started to talk about the different parts of a plant and what they are for.  The flower is for making seeds for the rest of the plant.  The stem helps give the plant support and also allows nutrients to travel to the rest of the plant.  The leaves help catch sunlight so that they can make the plant's food.  And the roots help keep the plant stable and also gather the nutrients from the soil so that it can be spread to the rest of the plant.  When we go on our field trip on Wednesday, we'll have a chance to check out some plants and test our knowledge of all of their parts!

This is also the last Friday of the month so we'll be having our very first classroom store experience!  Students will have to make tough decisions about their money.  Should they save it?  Should they spend it?  They'll also have to use their extraordinary math skills to make sure they add up their purchases correctly.  At the end, we'll talk about what items were popular and what items were not so popular (an introduction to supply and demand!).

Math:  This week we will be unpacking our second learning target of the year.  

MA.02.OAT.02.01  I can fluently add and subtract numbers up to 20 in my head.

We'll have a chance to learn some strategies for how to add numbers together and also have the chance to play some math games.  Students will be given ample time to practice their individual goals.

During the week, we'll also be introducing the idea of math menus.  In order to help students meet their goal, they are given a menu which allows them to have some voice and choice in how they practice their goal, and in turn, meet it.  I'll be doing a lot of modeling and practicing to help students learn the routines and procedures around math menus.

If you have any questions, comments, or insights please let me know!

I hope you have a fabulous week!