April 9th-12th

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

There is a note in the boomerang folders with a few more details about the biography project.  If you have any questions about it let me know!

There is NO SCHOOL on FRIDAY, April 13th!  Next week is spring break!  

Classroom wish list:  index cards, expo markers, top erasers for pencils, and whiteboard erasers.

Biography day will be April 26th!  

This week in...

 Phonics:  We are working on hard and soft consonants /k/c, /g/g, /s/c, and /j/g.  We'll be practicing with the following words:  camp, cave, cent, face, girl, wagon, gift, gym, gem, and germ.  We'll practicing sorting the words by their sounds.  We will also practice building and blending words with similar patterns.

Vocabulary:  Our new vocabulary words are:  surface, spacecraft, lunar, visible, footprint, and discovered.  We will use our elbow buddies to help us figure out what these words mean, how to use them in a sentence, and also to build connections to these words so we are more likely to remember and use them.  We'll be searching for these words in a short story called Discover the Moon. 

Comprehension: This week we will be practicing how to summarize a story by picking the most important parts of a story and retelling them in our own words.  We'll also be working on classifying and categorizing.  This means that we will be sorting words, objects, ideas, and people into groups.  Doing this helps us see how items in a group can be alike.  We will be practicing these skills while we read The Moon by Seymour Simon.

Writing:  We are hard at work researching for our biography book reports!  We have been practicing ways to record information and how to sort it all out into a report that makes sense.  We use green, yellow, and red pieces of paper to help students sort out their ideas.  Green sentences are at the beginning and the end of your report.  They tell your audience what it is you are writing about.  Yellow paper shows us our star ideas, the main points we want to make in our writing.  Red sentences are our detail sentence.  We write two red sentences for every yellow star idea.

Math:  This week we are continuing our practice with adding and subtracting 10 and 100 from a number in you head as well as adding four two digit numbers together.  When students are adding four two digit numbers together they can use whatever strategy they want as long as they can label their thoughts.

Social Studies:  We are getting ready to send out all of our Flat Stanley letters across the country.  Students will be addressing the envelopes themselves and then they will be on their way!  We are so excited to learn all about the different places our friends and family members live!

Other news:  Today we headed over to Dunn School to meet up with our book buddies.  We continued the challenge of making rhyming poetry.  This time, Miss Audette had students add to the saying, "April showers bring May flowers."  First students found as many words as they could that rhymed with flowers and showers.  Then, students used those words to make two more lines of the poem.  When they were finished, they had a poem in the shape of a flower!  Students took this project home with them today.  Some students were not able to finish their project today so they may choose to finish it at home, but they do not have to.  It is simply their choice if they would like to finish it or not.

Have a wonderful and fabulous week!

April 2nd-April 6th

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

I still need some of the Flat Stanley papers back!  If you do not have a family member or friend willing to participate in the Flat Kid Exchange, please send the paper back indicating that and I will find an alternative person for your child to mail their flat self to.

Students were informed of our new biography research project!  Students will be picking a person to research, writing a report about them, and then dressing up just like the person.   Our official biography day will be on April 26th.  Students will come to school dressed like their person and present their report.  When it comes to dressing up like their person, it can be as simple as a hat.  For example, if they choose George Washington, they can make a tricorn hat out of construction paper and wear that as their "costume".  More details, information, and guidelines about this project will be going home next week!

Students have been doing a PHENOMENAL job bringing their homework back to school on Mondays!  Thank you for all of the support at home you have been providing.  It definitely makes  a huge difference for your child here at school!

Thanks again to all of the parents who were able to fill out the Parent Parking Lot about spring conferences!  Your feedback and comments were greatly appreciated and I will use them to make conferences better in the future!

This week in...

Phonics:  Students have been introduced to silent letters.  We have practiced /n/ gn, kn; /r/ wr; /m/ mb together.  We looked at the following words together:  knee, knife, knot, gnaw, sign, wrist, wren, thumb, lamb, and debt.  We practiced reading, spelling, and spying the silent letters in each of these words.  We then sorted them into categories based on their silent letter spelling pattern.  It was definitely a tricky list this week!

Vocabulary:  Our new vocabulary words are:  blooming, prickly, muscles, aroma, scent, and trade.  We will be using our elbow buddies to read these words, figure out what they mean, how to use them in a sentence, and also build connections to the words.  We will then search for the words when we listen to the story City Garden by Roberto Salazar.

Comprehension:  In small groups, we have been working on constantly checking ourselves for understanding.  This means that we continually monitor ourselves when we read to see if it makes sense.  If something does not make sense, we need to go back and reread.  Sometimes we need to reread a sentence.  Sometimes we need to reread the page.  One of the best ways to check for understanding is to ask yourself questions about what you are reading!  If you can answer the question, you can move on.  If you can't, you need to go back and reread.  

We will also be working on summarizing stories.  When we summarize a story, we pull out the most important parts of a story and retell them in our own words.  This helps us to remember the story better.  Additionally, we will be working on identifying the sequence of events.  We will look for key words like first, next, and last to help us with this.

Grammar:  We will be working on pronoun-verb agreement.  For example, a present-tense verb must agree with a pronoun in the the subject part of a sentence.  We would say that "she wants to plant a garden" instead of "she want to plant a garden."  We will be doing example sentences together and then students will have the chance to practice a few examples independently.

Writing:  This week we will be focusing on finishing our Flat Kid Letters.  We are writing short letters to the people we will be sending ourselves to!  We will be reviewing the format of a friendly letter and also some of the things that you can write about in letters.  

Math:  Today we talked about our next learning target that we will be working on as a group.  We will be practicing adding and subtracting 10 or 100 from a number in our heads.  This a great review of the ones, tens, and hundreds place in a number!  Students love the challenge of being able to figure things out in their heads too!

Social Sciences:  With our Flat Kid Exchange we will have a chance to visit some of our mapping skills.  Once we begin to receive our return letters, we will be able to map out where our Flat Kids visited and also calculate the number of miles we have traveled!  This is definitely one very fun project and we are so excited to start mailing out ourselves next week!

Other News:  Our biography projects are a combination of reading and writing.  This week, students will be exploring all kinds of biography books in the classroom.  At the end of the week, students will be choosing the person they wish to research. 

What Can My Child Practice on IXL?

Here are the letters and numbers of the standards on IXL that would be most beneficial for your child to practice right now:

A.5

A.11

E.9

F.9

F.10

F.11

G.9

G.10

G.11

H.9

H.10

H.11

L.3

L.8

Students are working on solving word problems using tools, tens and ones, and unknown change.  All of the above links will help them practice whether it is practice with word problems or practice with the specific strategies.  Let me know if you have any questions!

Other things that are always great to practice (especially if your child hasn't yet met the standard with a 3 or a 4) would be time and money!  Any of the numbers under time (letter Q) or money (letter P) would help them to meet their goal!

March 26th-March 30th

Was anyone able to make it to Dancing with the Staff this weekend?  I did!  What a fun show filled with positive energy!  All of the dancers did such a great job!  I really hope the event returns next year!  

Now it's back to normal, chilly March weather.  Last week was such a tease but at least we know that warm, sunny, summertime weather is just around the corner!

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Team Blowey has done a phenomenal job raising money during the hop-a-thon!  So far, we have a total of $58!!!  Thank you so much for any and all of the contributions you were able to make.  The money is definitely going towards a good cause!

CHECK OUT THE BOOMERANG FOLDERS!  Today, there will be a golden paper describing our new Flat Stanley project.  The paper is asking for the name and address of someone who is willing to participate in our "Flat Kid" exchange (more details on the paper).  Please fill these out and return to school as soon as possible.

There is also a pink parking lot that was sent out on Friday (some students forgot them in their mailboxes over the weekend) asking for your feedback on spring conferences.  Please take a few minutes to fill it in.  All of your comments will be used to make future conferences even better.  Your input is greatly appreciated!

This week in...

Phonics:  We are learning the schwea sound.  Basically this means that sometimes the letter "a" can make the /uh/ sound.  For example, again.  We practiced with the following words:  alone, ago, again, away, alike, agree, above, awake, idea, and comma.  We also practiced clapping out the syllables in each word.  It was a lot of fun!

Vocabulary:  Our new vocabulary words are:  vast, oceans, areas, voyage, and planet.  We'll be figuring out what these words mean, how to use them in a sentence, and also building connections to each of the words.  Then, we'll listen and search for them in a short story called Continents and Oceans and again in the short story called Record Holders!  

Comprehension:  We will be reviewing the strategy of summarizing a story to help us remember what happened in a story.  When we summarize, we are practicing being able to pull out the most important parts of a story and being able to retell them in our own words.  To build off of this, we will also be reviewing main ideas and supporting it with details.    We will practice these skills while we read Columbus Explores New Lands.

Grammar:  This week we will be working with possessive nouns.  Possessive nouns show who or what owns something.  For example, its, our, your, my, his, her, and their.  We'll be doing some practice sentences together and then students will have the chance to practice on their own with a short weekend.

Writing:  As you'll see in the boomerang folders, we are working on our Flat Stanley project.  Students will have the chance to create their flat selves and also practice letter writing.  We are very excited!

Also in writing, we are working on wrapping up our Sideways Stories.  This week, students will work on typing their own individual stories.  I will help them with some of the typing, editing, and formatting before we begin to print our very own copy of Sideways Stories from Room 10 written and illustrated by Team Blowey!

Math:  This week we will begin to wrap up our whole group lessons on solving word problems with tens and ones and start to unpack our next standard.  The next standard is:

I can solve word problems with unknown change using strategies I've learned.  

In order to meet this standard, students needs to show the following:

1.  I can understand what a word problem is asking me to determine.

2.  I know if there will be more or less at the end of the story.

3.  I can write a number equation that will help me solve the word problem.

4.  I can solve the problem using strategies including:

-using cubes

-number line

-relationship between addition and subtraction

-tens and ones

5.  I can show you what strategy I used and I can label my thoughts.

Read aloud:  We are continuing to read Every Thing On It by Shel Silverstein.  It's a book fully of silly poems that make us laugh and make us think!  It's been a great experience for us to be able to practice inferring and supporting with evidence.  Shel Silverstein so often has you read between the lines!  That's a big part of what makes his poetry so great!

Other news:

Last week, Mrs. Thibodeau was able to come to our classroom to talk to us about disabilities.  We read a wonderful story about a boy with muscular dystrophy and his service dog.  When the story was over, students had a chance to work on a venn diagram comparing themselves and someone they know with a disability.  It was a great experience to be able to recognize some of the differences but an even greater experience to realize how much we had in common! 

Have a wonderful week!

March 19th-23rd

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Conferences are this week!  You should have received a conference confirmation slip letting you know what day and time your conference will be.  If you cannot make it to your conference time, please let me know as soon as possible so that we can reschedule.  Remember, your child will be the star of the first part of your conference so don't leave them at home!  Also, if you have any specific questions to ask me, please send them to me ahead of time so that I may have a chance to prepare the materials.

The new homework policy is in place!  Students must bring their homework packets back to school on Monday of every week.  If I do not receive their homework packet, they will be spending their earned time working on the goals that they should have been practicing at home.

This week in...

Phonics:  We are working on the dipthong /oi/  using "oi" and "oy".  We'll be practicing with the words:  soil, oil, broil, toy, moist,  joy, point, soy, boil,  and royal.  We will be sorting, building, and blending all kinds of words together!

Vocabulary:  Our new vocabulary words are gathered, agreed, randomly, jabbing, and signal.  We'll be learning what these words mean, how to use them in a sentence, and also building connections with the words.  We will be searching for these words in a play called Why Sun and Moon Live in the School.

Comprehension:  This week we will be emphasizing the ability to visualize what is going on in a story while you read.  When you visualize the story, it helps you to think about what is happening and it helps you to better understand the story.  We'll also be reviewing the problem and solution in a story.  

Grammar:  We will be talking about when to you I, me, we, and us.  We use "I" as the subject of a sentence and we use "me" as the predicate part of the sentence.  On the other hand, when we want to talk about ourselves and other people, we use "we" as the subject" and "us" as the predicate of a sentence.  We'll be doing some example sentences together to help us practice this skill.

Writing:  We are still working hard on our Sideways Stories!  Once students have finished brainstorming and planning, they will use that information to make a rough draft.  That rough draft is then turned into the check-me bucket and I will go through it and make suggestions to make the story better.  Then, students will have a sit-down writing conference with me to talk about their story and then use what we talk about to revise their rough draft.  Once they have revised their rough draft, they will use that to make a final draft.  When everyone has finished their final draft, we will combine all of our stories to make a class book called Sideways Stories from Room 10.  

Math:  This week, we are beginning to move out of our whole class lessons on using tools to solve word problems.  However, this does not meet that students who still need more practice using tools will no longer get the time to practice.  Students will practice their individual goals during goal time.  Tomorrow, we will be unpacking the following standard:

I can solve word problems with numbers within 100 using tens and ones.

In order to meet this standard, they must show me:

1.  They can understand what a word problem is asking them to do.

2.  They know if there will be more or less at the end of the story.

3.  They can write a number sentence to represent to problem.

4.  They can take apart, put together, and regroup tens and ones to solve a word problem.  

Students will have a menu of choices for ways they can practice this standard.  When they have shown me all four things above, they will have the opportunity to take an assessment to see if they can move on to the next standard.

Other News:

Today, we got to visit with our book buddies again!  We listened to some Shel Silverstein poems and then had a rhyme race where we raced to come up with as many rhyming words as we could think of!  Once we got our brains in the rhyming mood, we used them to create rhyming poems together!  It was a blast!

This week, students will be practicing the student led portion of their conferences.  They will be working very hard to impress you at their conference!

I look forward to meeting with all of you again this week!  I hope you all enjoy the beautiful sunshine and gorgeous weather we'll be having!

March 12th-16th

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

Wednesday is Team Blowey's reward Art class.  Thank you so much to everyone who was able to donate supplies!  Mrs. Eslinger greatly appreciated it!

Conferences are next week!  If you haven't done so already, please fill in the conference sheet that was sent home in the totes last Thursday.  On that paper, please my sure you put your child's name and your top 3 choices for conferences.  Remember, it is first come, first serve so fill them out as soon as possible!  If you have any questions that you would like answered at your conference, please send them to me ahead of time so that I can prepare the materials for you.  Thank you!

Wish list:  expo markers, pencils, pencil top erasers  (We're running low!)

This week in...

Phonics:  We are working with the dipthong /ou/ with "ow" and "ou".  We practiced and sorted the following words today:  clown, round, growl, loud, howl, cloud, brown, house, crown,  and sound.  Throughout the week we will continue to build and construct new words with the /ou/ sound using both "ow" and "ou".  

Vocabulary:  Our new vocabulary words are:  lengthy, burrow, ranger, warning, distant, and beyond.  We will use our elbow buddies to learn what these words mean, how to use them in a sentence, and also build connections to the words.  We will then listen and search for these words in a story called The Coatis of the Sonora Desert by Nya Taylor.

Reading:  We will be reviewing what it means to summarize.  When we summarize we are telling the most important ideas about a story or article.  It helps us to remember and understand what we have read.  We will also be working on evaluating the author's purpose.  This means we are evaluating the author's reason for writing a selection.  Before, we used the acronym PIE to help us.  Authors write to Persuade, Inform, or Entertain.  Sometimes, authors write with more than one purpose.  We will be practicing this with the story "Dig, Wait, Listen:  A Desert Toad's Tale by April Pulley Sayre.  

Grammar:  This week we will be talking about pronouns.  Pronouns are words that take the place of a noun or nouns.  Example would be words like:  I, he, she, it, and you.  We will do a few practice sentences together and then have some time to practice pronouns individually.

Writing:  We are still continuing our Sideways Stories!  Most of us are moving out of the planning stage and moving into the rough draft stage.  Our imaginations have been on fire these past few days!

Read Aloud:  We just finished Flat Stanley and will be moving into a really fun project for the book soon!  This week, though, our read aloud books are focused on different disabilities.  Since March is Disability Awareness Month (and also the month of the hop-a-thon) we will be learning about disabilities like autism, down, syndrome, and cerebral palsy through books.

Math:  We are continuing to solve word problems with numbers within 100 using tools like the hundreds chart, number line, and drawings.  If you are practicing IXL at home, your child can practice L.6, L.8, E.9, G 2,3,4,5, 9, H. 2,3,4,5,9.   Encourage your child to solve these problems with a number line, hundreds chart, or with drawings.  

Other news:  This week, students will also be participating in a Disability Awareness Day.  They will be moving through three different stations designed to have students "experience" what that particular disability may be like.  

We are still continuing to raise money for the hop-a-thon!  The classroom who raises the most money will be able to attend the Special Olympics in May!

I hope you have a fabulous week!  Enjoy the lovely weather!

March 5th-9th

ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:

New homework policy has started!  Please remember to send your child's homework back in the boomerang folder every Monday!  They will earn points every time they practice their goals.  Also, DOING your homework is not a choice, rather you get to choose HOW your practice at home.

Conferences are coming up soon!  Be on the lookout for a sign-up sheet in the totes this Thursday!  Conferences will be on March 20th, 21st, and 22nd.  

This week in...

Phonics:  We are working with the variant vowel <o> (short o) sound with the letter pairs "au" and "aw".  The words we are working with are:  pause, draw, launch, law, fault, jaw, fawn, hawk, raw, and crawl.  We have sorted the words and we will practice building and blending more words later this week.

Vocabulary:  Our new vocabulary words are:  noble, promised, gleamed, wiggled, beloved, and glanced.  We will learn what these words mean, how to use them in a sentence, and also build connections to the words so that we are more likely to remember and use them.  Vocabulary days are always fun because we get to work with our elbow buddies and share our ideas with our teammates!  We'll listen to the words in a story called My Home in Alaska.

Comprehension:  Our strategy of the week is adjusting our reading rate.  This means that sometimes, we need to slow down while we read so that we can better understand what we are reading.  By slowing down, students can identify and figure out difficult words or sections in the story.  We will also be practicing the skill of making inferences.  Inferences are when you make decisions about the story based on clues that the author gives you or things you already know.  We'll be reading a story called Nutik, the Wolf Pup  by Jean Craighead George to help us practice.

Grammar:  This week we will be focusing on contractions such as isn't, aren't, can't, doesn't, don't, and didn't.  We will talk about how a contraction is a short form of two words and how we use an apostrophe to take the place of the letters that are left out of the contraction.  We will be doing some practice sentences together and then students will have some time to practice on their own.

Writing:  We have begun a very fun writing project called Sideways Stories from Room 10 by Team Blowey.  Each student will get to be the star of the chapter that they are writing.  We already have ideas about silly things that could be in the story such as students turning  into pickles, talking feet, and falling asleep and then falling out of a window!  The students have brainstormed their ideas and now they are beginning to sketch out the ideas that they have while at the same time making quick notes.  These will be used for the students to create their rough drafts.

Math:  Today, we unpacked our new standard:  I can solve word problems with numbers within 100 using tools.  Basically this means that students will be practicing adding and subtracting numbers using a number line, hundreds chart, and drawings.  In order to move on to the next standard, students must show me that they can solve a word problem using all three strategies.  Throughout the week, we will be doing practice problems together and then we will have time for students to use their menus to help them reach their individual goal. 

Social Science:  March is Disability Awareness month.  In your totes, you received some information about the upcoming hop-a-thon.  In order to coordinate with this event, we will be doing some physical challenge awareness lessons throughout the month.  For example, students might be challenged to color a picture using the opposite hand that he/she writes with.  This can help students become aware that some children might have little or no control over their muscles in their arms, hands, and fingers.