April Update!

Another month has passed! May is here even though it doesn't feel like it outside! It was nice seeing all of you at conferences. I know the children took a lot of pride in sharing their Family Books with you.

Reading and Writing

The children are continuing to work on their reading fluency. We are working on comprehension strategies such as drawing conclusions, problem/solution and cause and effect. We have also been working on grammar and analyzing the meanings of words. The children are able to identify homophones (e.g. the difference between bee and be).  

Math

We just finished up our unit on measurement. The students practiced using nonstandard units (ex: paper clips, unifix cubes, etc. ) to measure and compare objects.

The students are now learning about plane and solid shapes. They are learning about 3 dimensional shapes (ex: sphere, rectangular prism, cone, cube, pyramid) and how many faces, sides and corners different shapes have.  They are also comparing and contrasting the attributes that different shapes have.

I know many of you have been working with your child on IXL and Xtra Math at home. This is a great way for your child to practice math skills and math facts at home. 

Science and Social Studies

We are learning about Living Things. We are discussing the characteristics of living things, what all living things need and the different habitats where living things live. In addition, we will discuss the life cycle and observe mealworms. 

We discussed Earth Day in Social Studies. We learned about different ways to protect the environment and the importance of taking care of where we live.

February Updates and Reminders!

We will celebrate the 100th day of school this Thursday, February 13th. As part of our activities for the 100th day, I am asking that each child bring in a collection of 100 of "something." It can be anything that you and your child agree upon that will fit into a ziplock bag (ex: pennies, paper clips, legos, toothpicks, rubber bands, cheerios, candy hearts, etc.) Please have your child do the counting before you put the items into the bag. Stress counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's. See how many different ways your child can group the items.

Valentine's Day will be celebrated Friday, February 14th. Children should bring a Valentine for every child in the class. We will have a Valentine's Day party Friday afternoon.

I am still missing family traditions and family pictures. Please email me your family tradition and send in a photo as soon as possible if you have not done so already.

The Spring Conference sign up form was sent home last Friday. Please return the form as soon as you can, as conferences are scheduled on a "first come, first serve basis."

Thanks!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! I hope all of you have been having a wonderful winter break. Stay warm tomorrow and I hope to see everyone on Tuesday! Everyone had a great time at our classroom holiday party. Thank you Mrs. Taitler, Mrs. Knapp, and Mrs. Adelman for organizing and helping at the party!

December was a busy month with Children's Book Week. We celebrated Children's Book Week in many special ways. We had a great time visiting the Book Fair. We read with our buddies and had an all school Read-In in the gym. I know many of you also attended Family Reading Night.

Reading
The children are working on mastering the short vowel sounds, using consonant blends, building words from word families, looking for little words inside bigger words, using a variety of word endings and forming contractions. We are also learning about long vowels and short vowels and how words change when a "silent e" is added to the end of the word (ex: hop vs. hope). We are learning about story elements:  main characters, setting, problem and solution. We are continuing to discuss what happens in the beginning, middle, and ending of stories.

Math
The students are doing a fantastic job recognizing the fixers and filling in the missing numbers. They are able to recognize the fixer pattern when solving an addition problem. We learned that addition fact fixers can also be subtraction fact fixers! In addition to learning fact fixers, we are practicing subtraction. The students learned how to "count back" using a number line and practiced their subtraction facts by playing several different math games. One way to practice subtraction at home is to play Subtraction War using a deck of cards. The students really enjoyed this.

Science and Social Studies
In science, we finished up our unit on land and water. Next, we will be learning about weather. We will discuss temperature and learn about the different types of clouds in the sky. In social studies, we are discussing family traditions and celebrations.  Please send in a family picture and email me a family tradition. This will be used in the family books we will be making. We will begin to learn about Martin Luther King Jr. and the Chinese New Year.

Winter Weather
Just a reminder that the children are not permitted to play in the snow at recess without snow pants and boots. Please make sure to send a pair of shoes with your child so they are not wearing boots all day. Also, please send a pair of extra clothes with your child. Many of the kids are coming back from recess snowy and wet from outside!


Happy 2014!  Stay warm!