ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:
Homework packets are due EVERY Tuesday! Please make sure you send your child to school with their homework packet so I can see how they are practicing their goals at home. It also allows me to follow up with any of your feedback. Remember when you are helping your child with their homework, to circle the day of the week that you pick each menu choice. This is how you communicate with me about what is going on at home.
Our Harvest Party is tomorrow. If you volunteered to bring items in, please send them with your child or bring them to school yourself. Let me know if you have any questions! Thanks again for being able to help us out!
Hurricane Sandy made her way through Gray. I hope everyone is ok and that you all have power... or that you will have power again very soon!
Please remember to send back the green Flat Stanley paper with the name and address of someone who is willing and able to participate in our project. I need these papers by Friday!! If you need another one please let me know.
Our mystery reader on November 7th would like to bring in a snack that goes along with the book to share with the students. I sent home a blue sheet with your child that lists the ingredients. Please send it back to school letting me know if you are ok with letting your child eat the snack or if you are going to provide an alternative snack for them that day.
This week in...
Phonics: We are practicing consonant blends, meaning letters that blend together in a word. We're practicing blends with the following patterns: /dr/, /sl/, /sk/, /sp/, and /st/. We're practicing these blends by learning these words: dress, drop, slide, slips, task, skin, spell, crisp, must, and still.
Vocabulary: Our new vocabulary words are: rescued, mammal, young, hunger, examines, and normal. Together we figured out what the words meant and built connections to them. Then, we searched for them in a story called A Whale is Saved! by Elizabeth Baker.
Comprehension: We are continuing to practice summarizing stories by retelling on the most important parts of the story. We are also going to introduce the idea of sequencing events. This means that we are paying attention to the order of events in a story. To do this, we'll be looking for clue words like first, next, then, and last. We'll practice these skills while reading A Harbor Seal Pup Grows Up by Joan Hewett.
Writing: Last week we learned the parts of a friendly letter. For example, heading, greeting, body, closing, and signature. This week, we'll practice writing friendly letters as a part of our Flat Stanley project.
Grammar: We'll be working with plural nouns. For most words, we can make them plural by simply adding an "s". However, this isn't true for all words. For example, if a word ends in s, sh, ch, or x, we'll make the noun plural by adding -es. We'll also practice some special plural nouns. For example, we'll change child to children, or foot to feet.
CAFE: We'll be introducing an accuracy strategies. This is a strategy that will help us to know the words when we see them. We will be practicing how to chunk words. This means we'll be looking for smaller words that we already know inside bigger words. For example, if we came across the word cat. We already know the word at, which is hiding inside. We would read that part first and then move on to tackling the whole word.
Social Studies: This week, we are continuing to learn a little more about maps. Last week, we had the chance to learn a little bit about what maps are. Today, we began a project to help us figure out where we are in the world. After reading, Me on the Map, students then began working on figuring out where they were in the world by writing down their street, their town, their state, their country, their continent, and finally their planet.
Math: We are continuing with our fraction unit. Students are learning about halves, thirds, and fourths. They are also learning how to divide shapes into equal shares and describe those shares. They are also working on dividing shapes into different shaped shares. For example, they can divide a rectangle in half by dividing it horizontally or diagonally.
Halloween Themed Activities:
Math: M&M fractions, Bats: Cute or Creepy? graph, bat glyph.
Language Arts: Reading Stellaluna and Bats at the Beach, Spider: Fact or Opinion.
Craft during Harvest Party: pumpkin sun catcher.
I hope you have a great week!
